The New Conception of Housing
Modern Housing. By Catherine Bauer. (Allen and Unwin. 20s.)
To one who has found too many technical and semi-technical books (particularly from across the Atlantic) over-wide in scope, vague or inaccurate in detail and faulty in judgement, the present volume comes as a more than welcome exception: Wide in scope it is. To include between two covers a com- parative history of housing in some six European countries from the beginning of the nineteenth century and earlier right up to the present day, and to treat it politically, sociologically, economically and techniCally—all with equal success—is no small feat. We see the chaoS of the last century imposed by unthinking industrialism on the remains of mediaeval and neo-classical planning ; the theories of the various reformers from Owen to Buckingham are expounded and their ineffec- tualness narrated ; we meet Ebenezer Howard, the father of the Garden City, and Patrick Geddes, the first regional planner.' And transcending all their efforts we see the growth of the idea, now held in almost every civilised country, that everyone has a right to a decent home at a rent he can afford to pay. The fallacy of the Manchester School is shown : supply and demand cannot be trusted to function efficiently where low- rented housing on high-valued land is concerned. And so to post-War housing, where the results of complete building inac- tivity for four years brought home to every government con- cerned the necessity fOr reducing land-values and building costs and for assisting, in one way or another, the lower wage- earners. From this has sprung the new conception, still far from complete, of housing as a public service.
All this might be thought to make a very fair book, accom- panied as it is by tabulated details, of housing progress and legislation over a considerable area of Europe. But this is only half : the second half of the text is devoted mainly to technical considerations of housing and planning. Here are discussed the practice and implications of garden-city housing, as against German lines of flats and the Dutch vernacular. Typical floor-plans are given of working-class houses and flats in different countries, convenience and costs being compared. Various materials and forms of construction are examined. Every aspect of modern housing, aesthetic, practical, social and eeotiornic is dealt with—and always thoroughly, with knowledge and balanced judgement. An appendix gives ti summary of the principal housing legislation in Europe be- tween the years .1850 and 1934, A generous bibliography and some fifty plates complete a book that is notable for its scope • no less than its achievement. One would have liked rather more details of housing in Sweden—in particular the very interesting work of the Swedish Co-operative Society—and, in England, what was regarded by many as the reactionary step of de-limiting the dividend of Welwyn should have been mentioned in connexion with the progress (or otherwise) of the garden-city movement. The effects of different types of urban and suburban housing on•regional planning might have been dealt with more fully : otherwise little or no fault can be found. It should not be thought that this book is intended only, or even mainly, for technicians ; on the contrary, it is entirely suitable both in manner and matter for anyone inter- ested in its subject. It is easy to read and is occasionally enlightened by touches of shrewd humour—" Much of the • dryness, and a great deal of the undercurrent of solid good - sense "—of the Fabian party—" is attributable to the Webbs, who were efficient administrators rather than Socialists, and in many ways might have been just as valuable to Mussolini as to the labour movement." Again, one of the principal differences between those who like and do".not like" the new architecture is neatly summed up : " To one group of people a house is a necessary evil, which should be designed in so far as possible to -melt- into its background. . . . But the other group likes 'a house as such, and makes it bold and positive, a statement of house-ness." The author's own views, which are never allowed to cloud her judgement, may be gauged from the following. " If we are to use the machine, if we are to have planned houses and cities, designed primarily for use and not for-conspicuous waste, if we are to take advantage of new materials, then we must first get rid of all our preconceptions as to what a building should look like : for the new conditions (and, more subtly, our own turn of mind which resulted in the machines and the desire to plan) determine entirely new forms." One more evidence of that unbiassed judgement which is, indeed, evident throughout the book.
G. M. BOITNIPIIREY:
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