Clough William-Ellis writes his parting message …
A Column
(of the Cambrian Order)

I indeed welcome, and joyfully accept, the invitation to fill a column of your journal. But with what? Dammit, I left you my valedictory New Zealand testament in the shape of a bunch of recorded broadcasts that were, I suppose, duly discharged after I had got safely away, and I haven't a notion what the reaction may have been. If in fact I failed to provoke any come-back at all, it can only mean that either I have lost my sting as a gadfly, or else that New Zealand was too numb to notice my poor attempts to irritate her into action. As either alternative would be just too dismal to contemplate. I shall blandly assume that at least some of what I said did actually register, and I shall now further pursue one of the hares already started.

About your architects themselves. Why do none of them seem to occupy the dominating positions in Dominion affairs that they surely should if the best and most progressive of them are ever to exert the influence that is necessary if New Zealand is to look, as well as be, a really civilized country?

Simply to have a sufficiency of good architects, though certainly necessary to salvation, can never of itself be enough, however high their quality, however forceful their personalities, however public-spirited their outlook.

They need enlightened outside lay support to help them establish themselves as, potentially, the most useful of good citizens, and to secure positions as the prophets and public oracles that should be consulted by all the departments of government whose activities in any way affect the face of the land, and this, I realize, means most, if not all of them.

So assuming that you already have, or are assured of, enough technicians of such light and leading as to merit public attention and governmental consultation, you are, I say, unlikely to find them in the positions of control that they unquestionably should hold, unless equally enlightened citizens in other walks of life have made common cause with them and formed a wide architectural and town and country planning ‘Front.’ Its main concern (having of course assured itself that it can in fact deliver the goods) would be to foster as wide a demand as possible for distinguished design in all things, from individual houses to whole city lay-outs.

This primary purpose of ‘selling’ design underlay the foundation of our English “Architectural Club,” which, by its rules, must admit to its select membership one Patron and one Propagandist for every Practitioner. It holds exhibitions, debates, and dinners, all devoted to a specific theme or object: it takes part in controversies and makes representations as a corporate body, and generally acts as an ‘honest broker’ between the producers and consumers of good design, the best architects and the public.

And because both enlightened big business and politicians were well represented amongst our ‘Patrons’ (though none were admitted who had not shown an active interest in good design whether by giving commissions to good men or otherwise), and because our ‘Propagandist’ members included many of the most influential authors, journalists, and art critics, the Architecture Club did attract notice, not to itself, but to architecture and to the importance of good design in general.

That was something, to our envy and admiration, had already been done in the Scandinavian countries, most notably in Sweden, where their leading architects, land-scapists, planners, sculptors, and artists of all kinds are as well known and as popularly acclaimed as are your outstandingly successful racehorses or football stars. I myself have a high regard both for bloodstock and All-Blacks—yet I should feel a good deal easier about my admired New Zealand if she herself could widen her admirations as I have suggested.

Which, I guess, must have just about filled my column with nothing said beyond this:

Good architects, yes of course; but you will never breed enough who are good enough without drumming up an audience for them—creating a demand—a job in which of course they must play their own intelligent part but which they cannot do alone.

It is an essentially co-operative job of public enlightenment, and there are a hundred ways of setting about it. One of the hundred will be best suited to New Zealand's special circumstances and, if pursued with vigour, could certainly transfigure her.

So why not?

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