September, 1931. 
THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHITECTURAL RECORD 
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COMMENTARY. 
BY REX MARTIENSSEN. 
Raymond Hood. In America where architectural form is largely influenced by imported cliches, the quality of vitality in building is usually 1acking. Houses are built in the Cotswold style, great office buildings resemble the towers of Gothic cathedralls-and libraries inevitably are designed in the American classic style, that strange rechauffe of Italian Renaissance forms with a Beaux Arts flavour. So that it is exceptional to find fine architecture flowering out of the difficult conditions of cramped sites and exacting requirements. To build logically and economically. To brush away the cobwebs of precedent, these things are difficult where money and splendour and tradition are closely interwoven. But every now and then We find some building, created as a thing in itself and beautiful by virtue of its ability to satisify the canons of function and contemporaneity. 	
Such a structure is the News Building, in New York, by Raymond Hood. The first consideration was utility, the zoning laws and office arrangements dictated the plan and window system. The economics of the building are interesting, for it is the income from the general office portion of the building that makes it possible for The News to have its offices and plant situated on a central property. Raymond Hood has some interesting notes in a recent number of the Architectural Forum on this great building, perhaps the finest of all recent attempts to solve the problem peculiar to New York. I like the way he discusses his building-as though he enjoyed creating it, and was not surprised to find his ideas flowing easily on to paper and then solidifying into three dimensions. His client wanted colour on the facade, so Hood put bright red window shades to all the windows. A happy inspiration that reminds one of Lutyens' light hearted and spontaneous gestures in treatment. And again his client wanted an explosion of architectural effect in the entrance lobby-so Hood spent $150,000 in that place alone! 
Hood is amused by the criticisms (so familiar to all architects who do not follow the safe paths of 
	tradition) of his colleagues. 	I will quote him, 
“ ... So the exterior more or less created itself.” 
From the second story to the top, there was no logical reason for varying a window, either in size or location. Arriving at the top, i.e. as far as we found it advisable to go by our calculations of the relative proportion of rental space to elevator and general service, I tried the simple expedient of stopping without searching for or causing the owner to pay for an effect. The exterior has brought out, among others, two comments from architects, that I will repeat. One eminent fellow said to me, when the exterior lacked only two stories of completion: I cannot tell you whether I like it until I see what ornamental treatment you use at the top. The second, a well known 
architect, said that an architectural composition must have horizontals; that as pronounced a vertical treatment as that of the News Building should have two or three band courses to hold it together. I do not know what to say to either of these two criticisms. Naturally the exterior of the News Building is so simple that a great many things could be done to it, but whenever I wanted to do anything, I never knew where to begin or where to stop; and I took comfort from a remark that Laloux made occasionally to a student who was at a loss as to what sort of ornament to use in a particular place. Laloux's remark was: ‘Why not try nothing?’ 

The New Building, New York
Raymond Hood. Architect, 

	
THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHITECTURAL l<ECORJ 
September, 1931. 
"Good-Bye To All That." In the issue of June 26th of The Architect and Building News is described and illustrated a new house for Professor Ashmole, designed by A. D. Connell, so that its owner may overlook the "rolling luxury of a Chiltern Valley." It is refreshing to find that there is a client in England who has the courage to build modernly, and that there is an architect with the conviction (and technical ability) to embody his ideas in a modern house. In fact the first modern house to be built on English soil. For here at Amersham, Bucks., we say goodbye to pretty thatch and dormers, good-bye to quaint nooks and old beams, good-bye to the old world atmosphere that English architect:; have clung passionately to like life itself. Professor Ashmole's house has startled the English critics into awareness, and it has startled the English architects out of their old world complacency. Long have we been told by the traditionalists how to build a country house. The sacred formulae have been handed down from Nesfield and Webb, Norman Shaw, Lutyens, Baillie Scott and Guy Dawber. But how pitiful and thin is this preservation plea, how meaningless the urge to employ the limited methods of the craftsman in an age of mechanical power and immensely increased knowledge of technical processes. As well use the implements of the village blacksmith to build motor cars. 
In the description of the house I find the following: "The exterior is forceful but not without the charm that is attendant upon designed simplicity; in this it possesses harmony and unity, factors of design (need it be pointed out ?) which are not dependent on the addition or omission of a pitched roof or the introduction of leaded lights. The form of its plans has been decided by the requirements of the site and the desires of the client. Perhaps we may be excused if we quote some notes of Prof. Ashmole on the subject: it "was built with three main objects: first to take the utmost advantage of the scanty English sunshine and to evade the cold winds; second, to enjoy to the full a magnificent view across and up the valley of the Misbourne; and thirdly, to conform to the immediate contours of the site." It will be seen that the architect has met these requirements by a Y shaped plan that is a sun trap to the west and 8Outh, and a wind-guard to the east and north. Windows are large and sun-inviting, and where walls are blank the sheer cliff-like whiteness forms a foil and a contrast that is clearly indicative of a purposeful outlook on the problems to be solved; again in the words of Prof. Ashmole: "It will be seen that from whatever quarter the wind is blowing a sheltered place may be found out of doors." It is instructive to weigh the arguments of traditionalists with the ratiocinations of internationalists. The traditionalists are hard put  
Compositions in Architectonic Movement.-The following episodes (one might call them examples of word architecture) present a ·diversity of forms with movement as their basis. In the first Aldous Huxley gives it us in his description of a gay Italian pageant -the elements of which are built up in successive strata of colour culminating in the throwing of the banners. In the passage from D. H. Lawrence (surely one of the loveliest he has written) we are conscious of no climax, no built up structure, but 

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rather a slow rhythm of continuous movement that passes like an undulating wave over the Mexican landscape. A moving sinuous column of life that passes with the dust into space and beats with an even rhythm of warm life. Then Doughty's cadenced picture of hurried but slowing movement across the Arabian night. A slow rise and fall of movement that terminates and dies in the macrocosm of the night's darkness. 
Here are the passages :-"Every evening after that, while the swallows were in full cry and flight about the tower we heard the beating of the drum. Every evening, in the little piazza below us, a fragment of Pinturicchio came to life. Sometimes it was our friends in green and yellow who returned to wave their flags beneath our windows. Sometimes it was men from the other contrade or districts of the town, in blue and white, red and white, black white and orange, white, green and red, yellow and scarlet. Their bright pied doublets and parti-coloured hose shone out from among the drabs and funereal blacks of the twentieth century crowd that surrounded them. Their spread flags waved in the street below, like the painted wings of enormous butterflies. The drummer quickened his beat, and to the accompaniment of a long-drawn rattle, the banners leapt up furled and fluttering Into the air." (The Palio at Siena). 
"But down the valley middle comes the big road, almost straight. You will know it by the tall walking of the dust, that hastens also towards the town, overtaking, overpassing everybody. Overpassing all the dark little figures and the white Epecks that thread tinily, in a sort of underworld, to the town. 
"From the valley villages and from the mountain the peasants and the Indians are coming in with supplies, the road is like a pilgrimage, with the dust in greatest haste, dashing for town. Dark-eared asses and running men, running women, running girls, running lads, twinkling donkeys ambling on fine little feet, under twin great baskets with tomatoes and gourds, twin great nets of bubble-shaped. jars, twin bundles of neat cut faggots of wood, neat as bunches of cigarettes, and twin netsacks of charcoal. Donkeys, mules, on they come, great pannier caskets making a rhythm under the perched woman, great bundles bouncing against the sides of the dim-footed animals. A baby donkey trotting' naked after its piled-up .dam, a white sandalfooted man follwing with the silent Indian haste, and a girl running again on light feet." (Mornings in Mexico). 
"Late in the afternoon there fell great drops from the lowering skies; then a driving rain fell suddenly, shrill and seething upon the harsh gravel soil, and so heavily that in few moments all the plain land was a streaming plash, Our naga settled under us stern-on to the cold tempest. Our worsted mantles were quickly wetted through; and we cowered for shelter under the brute's body. 
"After half an hour the worst was past, and we mounted again. Little birds, before unseen, flittered cheerfully chittering over the wet wilderness, The low sun looked forth and then appeared 

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a blissful and surpassing spectacle! A triple rainbow painted in the air before us. Over two equal bows a third was reared, upon the feet of the first; and like to it in the order of hues. These were the celestial arches of the sun's building, a peace in Heaven after the battle of the elements in the desertland of Arabia. 
"The sun going down left us drowned in the drooping gloom, which was soon dark night. We held on our march in hope to meet with the Aarab, and there fell always a little rain. Serpentine lightning flickered over the ground before us, without thunder; long crested lightnings shot athwart and seemed suspended, by moments, in the wide horizon; other long cross flashes, darted downward in double chains of light. The shape of all those lightnings was as an hair of wool that is fallen in water. Only sometimes we heard a little, not loud, roaring of thunder. In a lull 

September, 1931. 
of the weather we beheld the new moon, two days old, at her going down. The first appearing of the virgin moon is always greeted with a religious emotion in the deserts of Arabia, and we saluted her, poor night-wanderers, devoutly; We held on ever watching for the Beduin fires, and heard about us the night shrieks of I know not what wild birds. At length Hamed thought he had seen a watch-fire glimmer far in front. As we rode further we saw it sometimes, and otherwhiles it was hidden by the uneven ground of the wilderness. The night darkness was very thick, the naga stumbled, and we could not see the earth. Hamed whose wit ever failed a little short of the mark, began to be afrai,d we might fall from some cragged place: he would adventure no further. We had nothing to eat and alighting with wet clothes, we lay down in the rain beside our camel; but the wind blew softly, and we soon slept." (Travels in Arabia Deserta).