Cultural Barometers
The New Architecture of Europe. By G. E. Kidder Smith. (Pelican Books, 10s. 6d.) iTIE. American author of this text-and-picture guide to 225 post-war buildings in sixteen Countries warns readers, in a quaintly modest Way, that it should not be 'rashly considered a substitute for personal visits to the buildings described.' This statement, unlike so many in the book, is very much to the point. I suppose most people would rather visit Coventry Cathedral than read the impertinent comment that its 'excessive' length is far more Gothic than current liturgy recommends (I say 'impertinent' because the Cathedral was, of course, planned With the help of liturgical experts). And I, for °ne, would prefer walking, through Coventry's traffic-free shopping precinct to reading Mr. Smith's astonishing `substitute'—the untrue ob- servation that progress there has been thwarted and traffic made chaotic by the opposition of `little people.' I would get more pleasure, too, from the pedestrian squares of Eric Lyons's blocks of flats at Ham Common than from the author's patronising remark that this architect's unique work is 'good in parts.' I realise that Mr. Smith is not wholly respon- sible for the shakiness of some of his facts and °Pinions-: he himself claims that he owes much to the 'discerning touch' of his wife, the 'eagle eye and well-pointed blue pencil' of Eunice Sudak and the 'knowing eye' of Professor Albert Bush Ilrown. He also mentions the guidance—'very Particularly indeed'—of Jim Richards, in Lon- don• But I cannot believe that Jim Richards, the most precise and accurate of all architectural critics, had a hand in the strange verdict that
of the New Towns is spectacularly planned
(how about Cunabernauld and the newest part of Peterlee?), or that Harlow is 'probably the finest to date.' Did Mr. Smith really find merit in the building of great variety of types, enough to fit all tastes'? It is just this desperate attempt to inject variety into housing architec- ture that has brought our earliest, sprawliest New Towns so much criticism—from Jim Richards especially.
Where Mr. Smith is purely factual—and, to be fair, this is what he is for more than two- thirds of his 300 pages—his book is useful. But he makes irritating reading when he gets caught up in the design jargon even more popular in America than it is here Buildings are often described as 'complexes': sometimes these com- plexes are said to 'represent new concepts'; and when these newly conceived complexes are multi-purpose buildings, Mr. Smith cannot make up his mind whether to call them 'combinations of facilities' or 'complex packages.' My favour- ite phrases are those that describe a church as 'an index to new religious thinking in concrete,' a sports pool as 'lacking in sophisticated felicity' and a municipal park as 'a concept that demands contact with the freedom of nature in order to offset the indoor restrictions of man.'
Slightly more irritating is Mr. Smith's occa- sional inability to come down firmly for or against buildings (otherwise referred to as `cultural barometers.). For example, the Unesco building in Paris: 'This is a very important building: it is even a great one; but it is not, many feel, a very great one.' The new suburb of Vallingby, in Stockholm, has many faults, yet is 'the most faultless' development of its kind.
One thing which surprised me was the trouble the author takes to justify the small amount of good architecture there is in Europe. Instead of
accepting the fact that good architects are as rare as good painters, composers or writers, he invents an excuse for their scarcity in nearly every country.
France is excused for rebuilding in the old manner because the repeated destruction of French towns and cities has pushed the people into retreat 'toward an architectural womb.' Poor Rotterdam, on the other hand, is told that the quality of its rebuilding is unforgivable : because it was the victim of an exercise in ex- termination bombing' it should have become the luminous example of the finest in European replanning.' Germany gets let off, not because it was bombed but because Hitler's regime pre- vented the people who commission today's build- ings from learning about modern architecture; Spain is excused her worst buildings because of the State's poverty of imagination; Switzerland is forgiven because the country has 'obviously a certain conservatism.' Italy. which is said to have an architecture of very high peaks among more architectural horrors than any other country this side of the USA,' is also allowed its gross errors. Why? Because at this point the author runs out of ideas and admits that 'if occasional lacuna: occur, indeed they must every- where.' In other words, there is good and bad architecture in all countries.
The British-born traveller who pays his half- guinea for this ill-written, valuable, prejudice- loaded, information-packed guide to Europe may be surprised, when he studies it, that he has bought it at all. He will read that his 'elusive and intriguing British temperament' accepts the chal- lenge of totally new things (such as radar and penicillin), but in more familiar matters, such as buildings, prefers the tried and true.
KENNETH .1. ROBINSON
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