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The winning scheme in the Wellington City Council's Competition, designed by William Toomath, A.N.Z.I.A., Architect, of Wellington, and O. Strewe, Landscape Gardener, of Auckland, in association.
A war memorial should be intimate and sympathetic in its nature, rather than solely awe-inspiring. In this case the aim was a garden in which people would find an atmosphere suited to their mood of recollection.
Seclusion is provided by small sunken gardens set beside the main path. Each garden conveys, by its planting, an impression of one of the regions in which the New Zealand forces were in action. Thus each of the gardens is given a personal meaning for different visitors.
In general, a broad symbolism runs throughout the Garden of Remembrance. Movement past the series of sunken gardens represents the progression through the War to the goal seen ahead. The climax of the garden consists of a pool, an island, and a tall screen, symbolising the navy, army and air force. At the foot of the screen stands a group of young weeping birches, representing the young men killed in the War. The sense of separation and loss is heightened by the intervening water, making the island and screen unattainable by the living. The screen, with pierced panels seen normally against the light, conveys something of the mystical division between the living and the dead.
The ground set aside for the memorial in the Botanical Gardens lies on top of a rounded knoll, with a slope of 20ft. downwards from the entrance end. The overall diagonal layout, and the stepped and sunken gardens, arose largely from following the natural contours of the ground.
Volume 2 Number 6
Editor: E. C. Simpson Art Editor: E. Mervyn Taylor
Two-Monthly Journal of the Architectural Centre Inc.
G.P.O Box 1628, Wellington, C.I May–June 1950
It is a wise plan to get to know whom you are fighting. The hostile forces ranged against good design are these:
Indifference is so negative that it is hard to combat. Men and women who are fully conscious of literature, music or painting are totally indifferent to signwriting, the type on a printed sheet, or to modern furniture design.
Cheapness First is a popular selling point not because it saves our pockets, but on the contrary empties them. Good quality products last too long to be profitable, whence arises the linkage of cheap and nasty. The astute businessman avoids the term “cheap” and prefers “low-priced”.
Many objects have crystallised into an accepted form, for good reasons. The commercial consideration Unnecessary Novelty redesigns the naturally round face of a clock into a square.
There is a snobbish fear that a plain thing may be mistaken for a cheap thing, so De Luxe Glory in the form of imitating expensive materials or sticking on ornament not only adds selling points but helps to camouflage bad work.
It seems unfair to number Mass Production among the enemies of design; far from being bad it is the means to realise an age of plenty. Mass production is still producing goods in imitation of the craftsman's wares, instead of employing new designs for new methods of production.
The cult of Arty-Crafty is responsible for the horrors of “Ye Olde Worlde”. They are almost as objectionable as “Ultra-Modernism”, armoured in chromium plate and faintly suggestive of Cubism, particularly popular with those whose homes are likely to be photographed for social publicity.
Strange to say, the most insidious enemy of good design is Logical Approach. We delude ourselves in thinking that man is a reasoning animal; he is full of illogical instincts. He does odd unaccountable things and collects odd unaccountable objects round him. What he feels about a thing counts for much more than what he thinks about it.
The Editor is always glad to consider any contributions. Where possible, they should be accompanied by photographs of the illustrations suggested. Original works of art should not be sent unless requested. For the purposes of reproduction, glossy photographs are preferable, and contributors are reminded that the appearance of good objects can be easily ruined by bad photography.
Letters to the Editor and contributions should be addressed to The Editor, Design Review, 71 Hatton Street Ext., Wellington, W.3. accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope. If written under a pen-name, the writer must enclose his name and address.
A Subscription is the best way to make sure of your copy of Design Review. The subscription is six shillings, post free, for six numbers and should be sent to Design Review, 71 Hatton Street Ext., Wellington, W.3.
Advertisers are reminded that the readers of Design Review are people interested in well made and well designed products of all kinds. Rates for advertising may be obtained on application to the sole advertising representatives, Arrow Publications, P.O. Box 127, Newton, Auckland, C.2.
In this article, an authority on the Southern Alps examines critically the principles and expedients of design of bush and mountain refuges.
My scope is huts I have no space here for tents, caves, overhanging rocks, hollow trees, mai-mais or roofless bivouacs, however cunningly contrived. My scene is limited to the Southern Alps. Let an Aucklander analyse the periodicity of the rash of ski palaces that threatens to afflict Ruapehu in between eruptions. My cast includes musterers, prospectors, mountaineers, ski-ers, trampers, deer killers, and all those who need alpine shelter or forest security. My stage-hands are sweaty packers, and wryly humorous builders.
The luxury of Swiss mountain huts and the ubiquitous refuge are not for the New Zealand climber or bush traveller, who must not only inure himself to heavy swagging but must also accept gratefully dry huts that are sheathed with truly horrible design. Indeed, I stand open to a charge of ingratitude when I point the finger at huts which have saved
As examples I illustrate my argument with photographs of six huts; some good, some bad; some museum pieces, some sign-posts. The First is Duncan's Hut of the Rakaia Valley which between 1895 and 1945 accumulated a heap of tradition not, however, sufficient to save it from death by burial alive. Duncan was an old musterer turned prospector. He built his hut with totara slabs on a grass flat by a lagoon that reflected snowy mountains. Dignity and sense of history endeared the hut to generations of travellers and even young mountaineers were known to spend the odd day rebuilding the chimney with earth sods. Stalkers gave deer-skins to help, and musterers left a spare billy or so for their seasonal work. Duncan's was simple, primitive, and made from local materials; it blended into the landscape till the landscape swept down from a height and overwhelmed all.
The Second is Brown's Creek Hut, Aorere Valley, Nelson Province. This is another simple shack; dark perhaps, but welcome in a storm or in winter cold. An alien note intrudes; the edge of corrugated iron. It makes a good roof, but only if well lined. It is ugly as wall-board, and intractable in winds.
Thus comes The Third hut now illustrated—Carrington in the Waimakariri. Would you shiver in July or swelter in December, grope in twilight at noon, or stumble around for a torch at midnight, cry from smoke at dawn or laugh from rare stories at dusk, hear the thunder of the rain on tin or the squawk of keas on the roof ridge? These, and other things I have done in the Carrington, but seldom comfortably. For Carrington was the first effort for the Canterbury Mountaineering Club that has since rebuilt it sensibly and 16 other huts as well. And Carrington in the
So followed more compact, better lit, and clean-looking huts. One, The Fourth in this series, even had a modern architect to insist on valid proportions and magnificent window space. Admitted, rail access to this particular hut at Arthur's Pass made it easy to build, and the generous glazing rewarded the closely-cropped weatherboards. Even war years did not stop all hut building or vitiate maintenance. And the experience of pre-fabrication and light materials made for noteworthy experiments. The Fifth in our series was at the foot of hanging glaciers, and walled-in by jagged rock ridges of the Arrowsmith Range, which scowled angrily at any whispers of air-drops. So the mountaineers designed a hut whose total bulk weighed only 7 cwt.—a burden they could shoulder on their packs on a long weekend for many hours of solid climbing. After two winters it seemed that the perspex windows, three-ply lining and floors, lightweight timber for studs and plates, and aluminium sheeting would stand the rigours of all the winter storms, but last spring an avalanche rumbled down and crushed the hut beyond repair, so that the builders must find another place and more material.
The Sixth and Last of these illustrations answers one important question: why not use local stone? There in the Matukituki Valley of Otago, within sight of proud Aspiring, now dwells the spacious New Zealand Alpine Club hut in which the walls and chimney were formed from the local schist rock, the mortar was made from river gravel and sand, and the back pillars and mantelpiece from bush. Horse, sledge and GMC truck moved 150 tons of rock. Other regions are less fortunate; with no road access, no stonemasons available, no flat rocks, and no raw material for mortar, little can be done except the conventional use of iron and rimu.
There remains room for skilled planning to make the hut design both practical inside and in keeping with its rugged decor. Sheep men, ski men, ice men, rock men, Uncle Tom Hunter and all—let many windows and much simplicity be your lot.
The first, second, third and fifth-photographs by John Pascoe. The fourth photograph from Paul Pascoe (architect). The sixth photograph by A. R. Craigie, N.Z. Alpine Club.
14
15
16
Photographs by Courtesy of the Turnbull Library
14 The construction of this house is of interest because it is an attempt to retain the economy and flexibility of timber and combine it with the durability of brick. The house is all timber except for the 4½ in thick veneer exterior wall. The simple shape of the plan shown above the photograph, the well pitched roof and the numerous but well barred windows associate this house with the English cottage tradition. It stands without compromise against the elements, and the garden, too, in this is typical of the great majority of houses built in New Zealand today.
15 It has been difficult to obtain interior illustrations of early houses. This has been included because it is characteristic of many larger houses erected 40 years ago. Wood has been used to line the walls and ceilings, resulting in a sombre effect in contrast to the lightness of most rooms of today. It is a good example of its time but overcrowded with detail. Many hands are required to attend to and clean such houses, and for this reason they are difficult to maintain today. The social and material conditions of each age are, of course, reflected in the house built during that age.
16 This Georgian Revival house with its sharp rectangular form and simple but carefully selected details was received with surprise and dislike when erected in 1913. Gray Young, Architect. It is a house of scholarly distinction, but the material used for construction, brick, was alien to the traditional construction, timber. Brick work is a craft that has always been handicapped in New Zealand because of the lack of opportunity and knowledge. For this reason the excellent brickwork of this house is of particular interest. Note the slight change in the shade of each brick, the wide mortar joints, the rubbed brick arches, the slightly recessed quoins and projecting sills. All this was new and has had a far-reaching effect upon the subsequent quality of brickwork in this country.
To the younger architect of the day and those who had some knowledge of the Georgian tradition of England, this house had appeal perhaps nostalgic in a time of almost complete ignorance and indifference to fine buildings.
To the general public it had little appeal. They thought the barred sash windows were old-fashioned and knew they were difficult to clean. This Georgian window was, of course, developed in an age when glass was costly and difficult to make, hence the small panes. The architect's selective use of the small panes for this house was for æsthetic, not technical reasons. Technically it was possible to make glass many times larger than the whole window. It is only within the last few years that architects have æsthetically developed the possibility of the large window without glaring bars.
The rectangular shape of the Georgian house with its carefully balanced windows and central entrance door restricted free planning, and in fact it is only by great ingenuity of planning skill that an architect can design a house in the Georgian style that is convenient and comfortable.
The Georgian Revival added little to the planning and technical problem of designing a house to meet twentieth century requirements. This was to be expected because the Georgian house was developed at a time when society was comparatively static and construction relatively simple.
17 The farm houses of New Zealand are of special interest. This one is from Central Otago. The main walls and chimneys are of stone. The verandah when built surrounded the house on three sides, but at a later date part of this verandah was enclosed with weatherboards. The detail and form indicate that the house was built in the 'sixties of last century. There is no suggestion of display here but of protection, comfort and economy, with a skilful handling of form and details.
17
I wantto make it quite clear from the start that I am on the side of comfort and convenience.
As the purpose of a house is to be lived in, it should look as if it were intended to be lived in. It is possible to design decorative schemes which look as if they were not intended to be used and would be uncomfortable and inconvenient. Such schemes have no place in a home.
In a home, comfort, convenience and restfulness are much more important than display and stylishness. In saying this, I do not want to create the impression that appearance does not matter and that creature comfort and saving of labour are the only things worth consideration. Note that I include restfulness among the important characteristics and I refer more to its visual than its physical sense.
Avoid strong contrasts
A harmonious colour scheme without too strong contrasts and a freedom from too many conflicting points of interest will ensure the visual restfulness which promotes mental calm and the ability to concentrate.
As a house is to enclose the activities of a family, it must be considered in relation to a particular family and the things that family does. A room furnished and decorated for formal entertaining would be unsuitable for young children, or for visitors who drop in in gardening clothes. The bedroom of an
Briefly, a room should look well and be comfortable and convenient under varying conditions. If there is a separate room it is better to let the children use it as a playroom rather than to have a dining room separate from the living room. If it is normal for the children to play in your living room, the decoration and the furniture should not be so delicate that the children leave obvious evidence. A good living room will be as pleasant and convenient with two friends in to afternoon tea as for a party. The scheme of your living room must not be so highly developed and precisely worked out that drawing the curtains or shifting the furniture upsets a carefully planned balance of colour or arrangement of forms.
A room should be comfortable and convenient under varying conditions.
Now to consider curtains, paint, upholstery and wallpaper. You may think the view from your window would look well framed between blue curtains, but remember that in the evening you will want to draw those curtains, thereby creating a mass of blue which may upset your colour scheme and will absorb light, making your room darker than it need be. The chesterfield suite, which looks luxuriously comfortable and perhaps is so for a group of four sitting round the fire may be a nuisance (when there are more people) because of the space it takes up. Comfort is felt rather than seen, and shape is more important than bulbous padding. A splendid decorative effect can be got by very light self-coloured carpet, satin or brocade upholstery, but they impose a great strain on the housewife if they are used as they are likely to be in a real living room. If you have a drawing room or a front parlour, they may be manageable. When they are really put to use, are they worth the trouble?
A housewife spends much time sweeping, cleaning and polishing floors—not pleasant occupations, so try to make their cleaning easy. Floors most likely to have dirt trodden in or to have things spilled should be smooth and easily wiped. Linoleum is the obvious suggestion, but even lino marks, especially by children with rubber soled shoes. A fairly strong marbled or mottled pattern helps to disguise soiling and extends the time between cleanings. But lino is hard and cold and noisy to walk on, so that in bedrooms and living rooms we want carpeting or rugs. A polished wood floor with rugs can be delightful but requires sweeping, then polishing, as well as cleaning and shaking the rugs. If carpeting is required it is preferable that it is all over the floor, so reducing cleaning.
Avoid having furniture merely because you inherited it.
Bathrooms, kitchens and rooms where splashing, steam or soiling are likely should have washable walls. Enamel is the obvious thing but excellent wallpapers are made and a light texture helps to disguise marking. In the other rooms the normal type of wallpaper is the commonest finish, is economical, easily renewed and generally satisfactory. Keep in mind washable distemper which can be cleaned with a damp cloth or an even more durable finish: flat oil paint.
The value of light rooms need hardly be stressed. Lightness depends more on the reflection from walls and ceiling than on the amount of light from windows or electricity. With large areas of walls and ceilings it is not necessary to use strong or dark colours to get striking effects. Mistakes are often made in choosing colours from a wall sample
A few extra shillings spent on durable covering are justified.
The same considerations apply to fabrics. Curtains have to be washed or dry-cleaned—they fade and are blown about by the wind. But the wear and tear on curtains is small compared with that on upholstery, for which strong fabrics of close weave are best. It is often impossible to clean upholstery and, as re-covering is costly, a few shillings spent on durable covering are justified. Slip covers in washable materials are worth considering as they allow the use of gay and light-coloured fabrics. In general, upholstery fabrics should be neither so light as to show every spot nor so dark that a thread will be obvious.
Every piece of furniture should mean something. Avoid having furniture merely because it happened to be in the shop or because you inherited it. You have your own life to live and your possessions should be adapted to you—not you to your possessions. Before buying a chesterfield suite think whether it is the most comfortable, economical and convenient way of seating four or five people. Chairs of more modest dimensions may be even more comfortable, less costly and are easier to move. Again, don't buy a glass-fronted sideboard because you saw one with attractive china displayed on it. Consider whether it is really a convenient way of storing your table ware and whether you want to put them on display anyway.
(To be continued)
How many of the thousands of daily travellers between Wellington and its Hutt Valley take the journey along the edge of the harbour for granted? There is an ever-changing splendour and excitement with the rugged hills rising sheer from the road enclosing the lively sea—one day calm and glistening, and the next grey and lashing against the shore. It is sad to know that soon we shall be able to see our harbour only through a maze of poles and wire. The Railways Department, forerunner in squalor-creating “development”, is about to electrify the railway. We are all for electrification, but not for the poles and wire. And we could have both the view and the electrification if we followed overseas developments, where a third “live” rail is used in place of overhead wire. But the difficulties have been weighed up in terms of cost against the harbour, and the harbour has lost.
***
With their superb faith in engineering achievement, New Zealanders have always associated power poles with progress. We are prepared without a whimper of protest to have our streets flanked and our views blocked by pole after pole (see pages 126 and 127). Look, next time you walk down your street and you will see what I mean. And strange though it seems the poles are unnecessary. If we do not carry our water supply pipes, gas and sewerage on top of the ground, why our power and telephone lines? Because, say the engineers, there are “certain technical difficulties”. And it costs more. If it does cost more is it not worth it? I, for one would willingly pay a few extra shillings in rates each year if it meant the difference between my street resembling a burned-out forest as it does now, and being a pleasantly tree-lined avenue giving shade and beauty.
A visiting American hydro-electric engineer, discussing the Huka Falls and the Aratiatia Rapids power projects, is quoted as saying:
“The important scenic and fishing attractions of Lake Taupo and Huka Falls should be preserved as far as possible in planning the Huka Falls project.
“It is assumed that the power station would be operated without regard to scenic effects during all seasons of the year, except during the tourist season in the summer months. In these months special arrangements could be made to release all or part of the flow through the natural flow and over the falls at certain regular, designated times for scenic purposes.”
This advertisement seems appropriate:
If every New Zealander were to take a trip to the United States or Europe, or even Sydney, the accumulated shock of returning would be sufficient to effect a transformation of our cities and towns into reasonable looking places. What returning New Zealander does not feel a pang of surprise and disgust at the squalid and dull appearance that hits him on arrival? Auckland or Wellington looks no better than he thought Otaki or Otorohanga to be. Smallness is nothing to be sorry about, but untidiness, bad architecture and crude sign-writing, though not peculiar to this country, do strike one immediately on return. It is a pity that we can so easily fall back into our comfortable grooves and so conveniently forget or accept our daily surroundings.
***
Do you live in your kitchen and leave your living room for guests? The other night I walked around the streets of a new suburb and counted the number of houses with lights on in the kitchen and those with lights on in the “front room”. It was over two to one in favour of the kitchen. Was it the warmth and homely smells of cooking that kept the family in the kitchen, or the demands of the housewife to save her daily housekeeping? Or was it cosier in the kitchen? With square feet so scarce, it might be well for house designers to reconsider whether the 200 square feet or more needed for the “best room” could not be put to better use.
This is the first of two articles written for Design Review on the fundamentally visual nature of the cinema.
The motion picture has been plagued by its bastard birth. Mothered by sideshow barkers and shirt salesmen, it was considered fortunate to acquire so early in its career such respectable foster-parents as the Drama, Literature, and Big Business. But ever since, blighted by its new-found family, the motion picture has been unable to discover its true nature. Our cinemas are still packed with diluted derivations from the other arts. Invariably, the patterns of the stage play or the novel adapted for the stage dominate the motion picture. Never, or very rarely, has a film been made that was true to its own visual nature from beginning to end. Yet if the cinema is an art, it is a visual art, not a dramatic or literary art.
The films we see, however, are hybrids and I find that when I speak of a good film I have loosened my language to include films which, though still subservient to the other arts, nevertheless face the special problems of an art that is the arrangement of moving pictures accompanied or supplemented by sound. Goodness knows when the cinema will move confidently and firmly in its own exclusive visual manner, concerned with its own type of perception and established in its own idiom independent of other art forms. In the meantime, I am satisfied to call a film “good” when it makes some step in this direction.
Accordingly, I am constantly depressed by that large body of so-called film critics who cannot see a film as an entity, but keep splitting the hybrid into its parts and tearing the parts to pieces. In this way, it seems to me, the cinema is kept in thrall to Drama, Literature and Big Business by valuations of films on the basis of their dramatic content, their literary fidelity, or their box office possibilities. Trade critics who are really watching the market often provide interesting sidelights on the picture industry, but the purpose of their reviews is obvious and no one would mistake them for serious criticism. My animosity is reserved for those writers who split off the literary and dramatic contents of a film, pillory them, and lead the public to believe they are film critics by making an occasional reference to the film's visual qualities.
In this way, many a good film becomes the occasion for their critical axe. It makes for lively reading sometimes, notably in the case of John McCarten in The New Yorker. But that's the best that can be said for it.
In New Zealand the most widely read local writers about films are “P.J.W.” and “Jno” of The Listener. Between them they have murdered many a film that, with the provisos I made earlier, I would call good. I can only hope they haven't turned intelligent audiences away from Blood on the Moon, The Lady from Shanghai, Cry of the City, or even such a superb film as L'Eternel Retour, to name a few that have been damned by their faint praise or outright abuse. They are, sad to relate, an echo of many leading critics overseas. I am prompted to write this by a recent review in The Listener by Jno of Saraband which, though a little more acid, was similar to the reviews the film
seeing a picture. Let's examine what he wrote about Saraband.
He begins with an amusing shrug of his philosophic shoulders. “The cinema, which can be all things to all men—which can find stones in the running brooks, sermons in books, and grist in everything…turns in Saraband to the somewhat murky Konigsmark episode as if in an attempt to show that even the House of Hanover had its romantic interlude.” Besides being unsuccessful, this experiment is, he claims, “neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.” But for whom? “The one-and-sixpennies, out for action and romance…will be irked by the sluggish pace of the story…The cognoscenti will be irritated by, on the one hand, the film's fidelity to the record in small and superficial things…on the other by the oversentimental picture it paints of Konigsmark and Sophie Dorothea.” Two types of filmgoers are thus disposed of. A third, to which Jno gives allegiance, is also dissatisfied. “Those of us who sit in the middle rows, and are not greatly concerned with ro-mance on the one hand or documentary fidelity on the other, so long as the dramatic potentialities of a given situation are adequately realised, will be disappointed by the fumbling direction, the general weakness of characterisation, and the prosy and lack-lustre dialogue.”
Three types of filmgoers, if they are conditioned by this sort of comment, will indeed be dissatisfied with the film. For there is little action, historical inaccuracy, bad direction, poor dialogue and poor acting (according to Jno). How about anyone who wanted to see a film? Perhaps there is something in it for them? You'd have to be psychic to
But Jno goes on to surmise what Hollywood might have done with such a plot. More bust, lust and vulgarity, not so much refinement, but “at least it would not have suffered from the negative virtues.” (I hope Jno saw Prince of Foxes.) Next the acting receives Jno's attention. Joan Greenwood was insipid, Stewart Granger incapable of playing Konigsmark, and two supporting players “might have done well had they had more scope.”
The one concession Jno makes to the visual qualities of the film comes towards the end of his review—and is wrong, anyway. He writes that “the climax…was deftly done and well-photographed”—and cannot help, encyclopedia-in-hand, adding “and probably as close to the historical truth as one could get.” All in all, “well-photographed” and “fumbling direction” are the only comments that bear upon what should surely be the main criteria of a film's worth, its visual communicativeness or suggestibility. The review ended with an explanation that the uncertainty of the film lay in the shooting technique used being dependent on money-saving set-up sketches—about as penetrating an explanation as it would be to say that Matisse's paintings were good or bad because he was or was not wearing spectacles while he was painting.
So—a column and a half of condemnation directed against a film and barely a word about the visual qualities of the film. For Saraband, though far from being an exceptional film, did have positive merits, and I would call it a good if somewhat turgid film. Its merits lay in those very pictorial qualities which Jno omitted to mention, in the elegance, fidelity and artistry with which it reproduced the ornate, rather heavy period atmosphere of the Hanoverian Court. The film was a series of quite attractive pictures. Not a series of unified pictures, not cinema. The pictures remained static and cinema should develop its effect by the conscious arrangement of pictures in motion. But Saraband did at least attend to the pictorial composition of individual scenes.
By D. E. Barry Martin
Published by A. H. & A. W. Reed; Price 6s.
This is the first book on Town and Country Planning indigenous to New Zealand and as such should be read by everyone interested in the future of New Zealand and planning in this country. Both the virtues and the vices of planning are inherent in the approach to the subject. While the author's desire to plan for us and our environment is praiseworthy, his “composite-mind all planning team” fills one person with fear of an impending technocracy. Could we not have the “composite-mind all-humanity” planning team? Then perhaps we could be certain of the “I-thou” instead of the “I-it” attitude in the planner.
The author very rightly stresses the need for adequate survey as a preparation for the plan, and for the proper analysis of survey material as a basis for re-planning. Mr Barry Martin is filled with proselytizing zeal for planning and expresses an innocent surprise when he compares the urbanity of Europe with “the shack appearance which we unfortunately still see in New Zealand today,” and observes that “this is probably a hangover from pioneering days.” True enough, the fact is that in most matters we are still in the pioneering days, certainly in regard to Town Planning. If you want any proof of this reflect upon the fact that in spite of possessing legislation for town planning since 1926, only eleven schemes have been finally approved by the Town Planning Board during these years, although planning was supposedly compulsory upon all urban units of 1000 or more population. However, Mr Martin writes that “early New Zealanders seemed to be in a hurry to develop New Zealand” and goes on to berate our forefathers for their lack of planning. That unfortunately was a failing common to the times, as witness the results of the same period in Britain when some appalling pieces of town building were produced, much more enduring than our own and rushed up in just as planless a way.
The author of this book also disapproves of civic design (with some degree of justification) but he does not clearly define what the term means to him, but makes mention of “civic design buildings” in a civic centre. Surely the term means just the difference between our cities and the ones he advocates—planned or “designed” cities. However, accepting what appears to be his own interpretation of the term, he evaluates Nash's London terraces in such terms as “with their grandness and richness, but lack of pompousness in the house unit, and their ample ecological content (sic)…are truthful and inspired and possess no character of civic design.” I would quarrel with such remarks Nash's Cumberland Terraces in Regent's Park is exceedingly untruthful. In fact as John Summerson writes in Georgian London “…It is magnificent. And behind it all—behind it are rows and rows of identical houses, identical in their poverty of design. Where the eye apprehends a mansion of great distinction…the mind must interpret it as a block of thin houses, with other blocks of thin houses carrying less ornament or none at all. The sham is flagrant and absurd.” It is perhaps illogical then to approve of “vista control” in Brussels, for this is nothing more nor less than civic design.
One last point—reference to the Piazza Erlie should perhaps read Piazza d'Erbe (incidentally approved of by Sitbe as an excellent piece of civic design).
This is an important and timely book, because the hour has come when we must decide the future form of our cities. As Mr Martin so rightly observes, we already have the necessary powers and the responsibility for planning rests squarely with the people and their representatives in the borough councils, etc. This book will undoubtedly set you thinking about your town and will help to direct your thinking along constructive lines.
Introduction by Stanley Morrison
Ernest Benn Ltd. London.
This book was originally published in 1924 and was limited to 400 copies for Great Britain. The format measured 13 × 18 inches comprising over 600 examples of printing reproduced in collotype. In the present demy octavo edition the plates, 272 of them, are unfortunately half-tones on glossy paper, but nevertheless they present a valuable record of the development of fine printing. The actual size of the type area is given below each illustration and it is possible with a little imagination to visualise the original. In fact there is probably more truth in a reproduction frankly reduced and printed on a glossy paper than in a “facsimile” that is not perfect in every respect.
The text by
A practical guide—Line Engraving, Etching, Dry Point, Aquatint, Bitten Textures—by S. W. Hayter, with preface by Herbert Read.
Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd.
This attractively produced volume is a mixture of the provocative and the practical. The graphic processes are described clearly in the text. The accompanying illustrations are sometimes too mannered and for clarity cannot compare in their class with, say, Noel Rooke's drawings for Edward Johnston's Writing and Illuminating and Lettering.
There are useful hints from the experience of the author and his atelier, seventeen colleagues. He is an amazingly inventive craftsman. He revels in experiment. He makes surface prints from intaglio plates and uses fabrics, leaves, crumpled paper, finger prints, etc., for soft ground and aquatint textures. In fact, so thoroughly does he exploit the medium that you feel that, if composing for the piano, he would regard the keyboard as rather obvious and would introduce plucking the wires, scratching the sounding board, dropping marbles down the back and perhaps banging the lid occasionally. The illustrations of his plates, however, prove that he at any rate can employ all manner of means with proper restraint. And his print in the Wakefield Collection, Laocoon (engraving with soft ground etching) was a revelation in masterly combination of the unexpected. His book is scholarly and convincing but is not for the beginner.
With the advent of modern interior decoration as we know it today, paint has taken on a new importance. Before, it was merely a means of preservation and relief to masses of heavy wallpaper, but now it carries, sometimes solely, the responsibility for unifying the whole interior design and establishing the “atmosphere” of the room. Because of its new importance far more attention should be paid to correct preparation of surfaces and application of paint than is sometimes done, particularly by amateurs. If the correct methods are used, the rewards are twofold. The painted surface is even, hard and without the slightest discolouration and, secondly, its life is greatly lengthened.
To facilitate this, B.A.L.M. have issued specifications for interior painting and they stress the danger to the work of using any other primers than those indicated with B.A.L.M. finishes or conversely, B.A.L.M. primers with any other finishes. Architects, master painters and all those concerned with paint will be interested to know that all B.A.L.M. products are right up to pre-war quality in formulæ, and their lasting qualities are unrivalled.
Note: If old paint surface is in good clean condition and no marked colour change is required, one coat only of Dulux 88 Line may be used.
Note: Where the old surface is in reasonable condition and no marked colour change is required, then one coat only of Dulux Supermatt Satin Finish 68 Line may be used.
Any additional information will be gladly supplied if enquiries are made to the Technical Service Dept., British Australian Lead Manufacturers (N.Z.) Ltd., Lower Hutt.
Sir: I notice together with your reminder of an expiring subscription an invitation to suggest improvements.
I am not connected professionally with the realm of design, being merely an amateur with an interest in it. But as a teacher, I feel that the really vital requisite for the raising of standards has, although touched upon, not yet been fully discussed in your journal.
We have had our modernistic building horrors inflicted on us—is better design also to be imposed? Or is there to be a really active demand from the people who, after all, really matter—the users, the consumers? There is opposition to good design, both from within and without, but it is the latter I am concerned with. The raising of the level of discrimination amongst the public is basic to the acceptance of better design. The demand must be there.
Here education must have a great responsibility. What can in practice be done in the schools is of first-rate importance. My suggestion, therefore, is the opening of a field of discussion on the educational aspect of better design, initiated by some well-qualified person, not only experienced professionally and technically in matters of design, but also—and this is fundamentally important if the discussion is to be along practical lines—au fait with the teacher's problems and point of view, whether the latter be primary or post-primary, social studies or art teacher.
As a basis for discussion, the Primary School Bulletins such as “Houses to Live In,” “Towns to Live In,” and the Post-primary “Better Towns,” have been a great help to teachers. Even so, the need for the teacher's viewpoint to be understood clearly is urgent if progress is to be made.
Sir: Is it possible that the editorials and some of the letters on the above subject have been a little at cross purposes? It seems to me there is merit in both cases. May I compare a designer with a thinker, and theory of design with logic? Knowing logic does not produce good thinking, but it may help others to appreciate good, thinking, and it may help the thinker to criticise his thought. Logic is an instrument, but it is not infallible. It cannot test premises, and it may be used, like any other instrument, in a bad way. Similarly, knowing a theory of design will not produce good designs, but the theory may help others to appreciate some aspects of design, and it may help designers to criticise their own work.
If the critic handles his instrument of theory with narrow understanding he may easily go wrong, or he may consider the instrument a poor one. An example would be to condemn Chinese bronzes because they do not fulfil their purpose. On the same reasoning one would condemn stone garden lanterns because they do not fulfil their ostensible purpose. But a stone lantern is not intended to give light. It is intended to be a part of a garden design. It fulfils that purpose very well. And so with Chinese bronzes.
Could we not agree that a theory of design must be based on experience of good design already produced, that it cannot be regarded as absolute, but must constantly be re-interpreted in the light of fresh experience, but
Theory of design is not a substitute for taste or creative power, but is a help to people who have little natural taste to form better taste and avoid major errors. If our manufacturers, for example, could only be brought to believe that the object must fulfil its purpose, think what we would have been saved. And if our architects and town planners could have been brought to realise that design must have unity—think what we might have been spared in the way of variety of bad design. And if our jerry-builders could have been taught that the material must be used according to its nature, how much rubbish we would not now have to put up with.
Surely the fact that some Baroque architects used materials not according to their nature only means that they were bad to that extent, but that other merits in their design were more important than this demerit.
Accepting the editor's opinion that “words words words” cannot make designers, one can also believe that words have a place in directing attention, and making experience conscious—or how would certain series of lectures, in which various schools of art were defended, be justified? It is true that all our judgments cannot be made by “trotting half-a-dozen rules out of our pocket.” It is true that experience in seeing and listening is essential. But it is also true that the experience can be summed up in words which will have meaning and make communication possible for people who have had little experience, and will illuminate their experience and help them to have further experience. Even artists cannot wholly do without words. If they could there would be a rather smaller place for editors of art magazines, and the illuminating remarks of Messrs Phishke, Patience, Roth—and others in Design Review could not be made—which God forbid.
Architecturally New Zealand is now being discovered. At least the appearance of New Zealand buildings, and articles on New Zealand architecture in American and English journals would lead us to believe so. Most recent is a five page feature in the respectable English magazine, Building. The writer, who last year paid us a visit, fortunately came into contact with the appropriate people, and returned with some illustrations of representative buildings, plus a few pointed comments. The selection of buildings includes Dixon Street Flats,