June, 1931. 

THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHITECTURAL RECORD 

COMMENTARY. 

BY REX MARTIENSSEN. 

57 

"Stockholm, 1930." -It is significant that the Architectural Review has devoted two complete issues to contemporary Swedish art. The first (August, 1930), has for its basis The Stockholm Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative arts. In addition to countless photographs and drawings of the exhibition buildings, there is illustrated the most delightful and varied range of lighting fittings, textiles, glass ware, embroidered Silks, metal work and wood inlay. Living rooms designed by Erik Chambcrt, Lund and Markelius, show the successful application of many examples of this decorative art to modern Swedish interiors. The complete effect is in every case refreshing and exciting. 

The second number (March, 1931) is devoted to the Swedish , exhibition which was held in London from March 17th to April 22nd. Again the Review is packed with examples of contemporary decorative work -suggestive of colossal enthusiasm, amazing creative vitality, and a spirit of sympathetic co-operation between producer, artist and consumer. Such a spirit does not exist in England. The creative talent. is certainly there, but the producer apparently finds markets for standardised "artistic" fittings of every sort without employing it. The consumer buys what is offered him, and taste is smothered from day to day by a continuation of the evil. It 'is indeed an extraordinary state of affairs that manufacturers of textiles and pottery and all the other things that might help to colour domestic life still employ commercial artists 

to design their patterns, when men like Paul Nash and Albert Rutherston are wasted in producing beautiful things for a handful of people. It is no wonder that England lags so far behind Sweden in the matter of taste. For the cycle is endless-and unless some new force surges in (from Heaven knows where 1) we shall still be shaking our heads at Continental work in fifty years time, and cherishing the myth that in England at least we have not violated tradition. For every person in Sweden who knows Milles, I wonder how many in England have ever heard of Frank Dobson. The sculpture of Milles flowers all over Sweden-when Dobson produces something it is attacked and muddied in the press. Alas, in England art will always be something exotic, not quite healthy-the occupation of dilettantes, the butt of mob-humour, and the despair of militarists, to whom all beauty smacks of decadence. 

Swedish work has an elusive charm-an indefinable "twist" which lifts it clear of commonplace things. These vases by Onefors (pages 60, 61, August, 1930), are lovely beyond description. And yet they are produced in numbers by a commercial firm for everyone to buy. Everyone who cares to (and in Sweden most people do care) can have at least one thing of beauty in his room, for a few shillings. In South Africa We can enjoy the superb pictures of Swedish art which the Review has published, and we should remember that there are artists here who are producing work which architects can embody, and 

58 

THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHITECTURAL RECORD 

June, 1931. 

should embody if we are not to slide into the deplorable groove of laissez-faire. Every serious student of contemporary architecture and decorative art should obtain copies of these two issues 'Of the Architectural Review. 
Mr. H. G. Wells at the R.I.B.A.-That Mr. Wells is still an active Utopian-and a very practical idealist at that-is borne out in the interesting remarks which he made in opening the Exhibition of Architecture of Modern Transport at the R.I.B.A. Introducing Mr. Wells, Sir Banister Fletcher quoted from his writings, " ... there is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in railways and iron bridges, and the engineering devices, to oblige them too be ugly." And indeed such an exhibition will help to clear the air of the Victorian bogey of the beauties of irregularity in architecture, and the sin of efficient functioning in building. Most engineering projects are in good taste because sentiment would not be tolerated in the designing of a piece of machinery. Efficiency is the keynote, and unbidden the aesthetic quality enters into the shape if the condition of functional efficiency be perfectly fulfilled. One has only to watch the working of ·the motors of a great modern liner, or listen to the faultless rhythm of a series of steam turbines to realise that there has been a divorce between engineering and architecture-and to wonder if architecture would not be the healthier for a reunion. But to-day there is no need to wonder, for the reunion has taken place. In Germany and France there is a unity between the arts and sciences which has hitherto been considered impossible. In England the seeds are there-but for the clouds of sentiment and muddled economics which retard a free development. we would be seeing the fruits by now. Mr. H. G. Wells is an enthusiastic modernist. (I should define the much misused word "modernist" in architecture, as one who attempts to solve the problems of to-day in terms of the problems, and with the means at our disposal.) 
He is excited by the idea of an architecture of emancipated form. In talking of the possibilities of artificial lighting he strikes at the root of the whole thing. 
" ... If I Were a young architect I should avoid jobs which had to appear in the open air ; I should like to concentrate upon interiors, upon Underground Rail· way stations, Tubes, passages, underground restaurants and theatres, etc., in which one could do absolutely what one liked with light for the first time." 
And not only with light, but with every other element at our disposal to meet the requirements of a changing system. We must realise the infinite combinations of forms which are to hand to produce the results we seek. Every problem on its own merits-and no backward glances at obsolete methods. There is no need to-day to employ cliches; in the smallest thing, a cupboard, a lighting fitting, a cottage or a kitchen; we should solve the problem intellectually and not by rule of thumb. The method ·of the ancient craftsman, who says "my grandfather did thus and thus," will collapse as soon as a new condition is introduced. We must work outwards from an idea -a germ-not inwards from an encyclopaedia; certainly we should bring all our knowledge of beauty, 

structure and material to bear on the question-but the question alone must dictate the ultimate form. 
The Hotel Woba at Basel.-There is a new building in the Baumeister for May, which would delight Mr. Wells. The Hotel und Pensionnat "Woba," at Basel. Everything that Mr. Wells asks for is in this exciting modem building. There is nothing' old, nothing stereotyped or smacking of the text books. And the whole thing is artificially lighted, the rooms are flanked by great glass compartments (superbly divisioned and proportioned) in which plants of the cactus family protend their fleshy limbs to add cheerfulness to the public rooms. 
Walls, floors, ceilings, furniture and lighting in the Woba are perfectly handled. Everything contributes to the general "raumlichkeit." I do not know an English word which conveys the sense of "raumlich." Spaciousness, a sense of orderly embracement, a feeling of right combination in the forms which make up the surrounding shape of a room. Raumlich is al1 these things. Raurnlich is one of the cardinal tests of successful architecture, and it is this quality which characterises the work of the best modern men. Gropius and Mendelsohn, in Germany. Oud, in Holland. Tengbom and Asplund, in Sweden. If one is to know something of the magic of the best contemporary work-these are the men to study. One can convey in words nothing of the charm and subtlety of these Woba interiors. There is a popular idea that "modern" is not comfortable or reposeful. The Woba contradicts this. How different is the Hall from the average chilly cavern which does for a hall in most "traditional" hotels. After a long and restless journey, what would a traveller ask for? Deep chairs, quiet, warmth, a cheerful colour scheme to scathe the weary eye. But above all freshness. Freshness after all the worn and shabby hotels (even the expensive ones) he has stayed in. And every room is fresh. The Bar, the Writing Room, the Tanzraum, each with its characteristic flavour, and schemed out by the architect to the (seemingly) most unimportant detail. 
A Note on the Modern Spirit.-It is not to be thought that because advanced modern work successfully fulfils a functional need that it is lacking in those mystic qualities, those thrilling touches of imaginative virtuosity which seem to be the essence of classic and gothic. The difference in kind is vast. The conventions of form are so changed in fact, that one might say the modern architect works in another medium. In modern work one does not find the familiar "twiddly-bits" re-juggled and re-set as in the past-or half-past, The unity is paramount, the parts are significant only as they contribute to, and limit the whole. 
One often hears the criticism that Modern Architecture is in general impersonal, de-nationalised. In the past our architects have expressed their personality by small recognisable touches. Such as planting a swag over the central window of a facade, as a woman who would complete her toilet by pinning a cameo at her throat. A facade that needs "pulling together" by some trifling ornament external to the main fabric, that relies for success on one feature to distract the eye-surely is organically faulty. These pleasant touches are makeshifts to cover the botches of inorganic design. 

June, 1931. 

THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHlTECTURAL RECORD 

59 

 

. 

In modern work the personal qualities are apparent throughout the design-distributed and imbedded in every form, not applied like a trade mark to the finished pattern. Breadth and repose are not sacrificed to a fictitious centrality. The traditionalists horror of assimilating new forms into his architectural vocabulary always strikes me as extremely illogical. "Not English" or "totally unsuitable," are the war cries. But surely the "Orders"-the whole range of classics motifs were originally un-English? Surely the Ionic belongs to the wide fields of impersonality just as much as any characteristic modem building form! (One wonders what shape our banks and clubs would have taken had the Greek and Roman not so considerately evolved a stock pattern for providing "bank and club character.") 
That the Greek and Roman orders should become a, logical and welcome addition to the forms of English building seems to me more difficult of explanation than why we should try to find a justification for building modernly, for providing in the easiest way the essentials of graceful living! 
One thinks of houses by Ostberg, Welzenbacher, Rading. Of the Bauhaus, at Dessau, by Gropius. Of Luckhardt and Anker's, Berlin work. Of Corbusier's ideal for a new Paris built above the ground, clear of traffic, with endless roof-gardens, so that each individual may enjoy not only his own garden, but see beyond an infinite communal stretch of green. One thinks of London from the train. The endless cottages flanking the railway line, blackened and shapeless beyond belief, the narrow streets and foul air. And beyond, the gloomy and forbidding "official" buildings. It is these buildings that the traditionalist would have us cherish. Re-hash, re-arrange the played out forms, transplant the sterile shoots in a new country of sunshine and clear atmosphere and quote the precedent. I think it was Norman Douglas who said that precedent stifles all development and creative effort. And in architecture precedent is the major curse. 
Take one branch of official architecture-the school. As it is to-day everyone knows the forbidding institution. It has dignity and solidity, and is depressing beyond measure. That it is a background for children, for the modelling of minds and personalities in the most critical period-and that the greater part of this period is spent by the child within or just without its walls, seems never to have been considered as a factor in its design. The child (except for getting the light on his left hand) is the least important thing in the whole problem! 
Why should our school be dignified and dull? 
Why not cheerful and blithe? Why should every child hate his class room (and all normal children do) and regard the whole building as a temporary prison. The enormous cleft in attitude to games and work is largely architectonic in origin. At present the two are irreconcilable. Freedom and drudgery; and the 

division is wasteful. The process of education should be complete and unified, and the school is a vital factor in providing this unity. There is one solution -a clean sweep. The school "of to-morrow" I see as an architect's dream, at times quite clearly, then fading into the unattainable, like a prospect of water in Arabia Deserta. 
The New Delhi Controversy.-Mr. Robert Byron has filled the January issue of the Architectural Review with the story of New Delhi. His photographs are magnificent, and contradict with ironic regularity the views which he expresses in the letter press. For Mr. Byron is a Lutyens "fan," and he detests the work of Sir Herbert Baker with such intensity that he has tried to cover the latter's work with ridicule. Lay criticism of architecture is always a dangerous thing. A man has to have exquisite taste before he venture into the realms of an art of which he does not know the alphabet. Mr. Byron has rendered his criticism of Baker's work and his antithetical praise of Lutyens palace valueless by 'his unbalanced prejudice. He seeks to dismiss Baker in terms of the ridiculous (a procedure which is in doubtful taste) and to praise every trifling fragment from Lutyens hand ad nauseam. He talks of a greater and a lesser architect. He collects a page of photographs of the less fortunate details of Baker's work and for contrast shows views of the Lutyens' Palace from flattering angles. He refuses to see the triumph of Baker's Secretariats, that the masses are infinitely more successful than those of the Palace. He cannot appreciate the breadth and confident handling of the buildings as a whole, but peers into trifles. 
And the reason is obvious. Because it is in the detail of his work at Delhi that Lutyens has scored. All the charming idiosyncrasies are there, the delicate profiles, the unexpected nuances of Indo-classic, tempered by the wizard hand of a master of texture. But his masses fail. Mr. Byron has kept to detail from his battlefield because in the major issues of form Baker's work was better. For that is the truth. At Delhi Sir Edwin Lutyens has not done his best work. We look in vain for the Lutyens of Britannic House, of Great Maytham, of Temple Dinsley. The architect who has done the loveliest domestic work in England is out of touch in India. Out of touch and out 0.£ scale. For Baker went direct from the Union Buildings ; that great preliminary was invaluable. In spite of Mr. Byron's estimate time will show which work at Delhi is the greater on the ultimate scale. For when the blind pro- Lutyens enthusiasm has cooled down, and the equally shortsighted prejudice against Baker has relaxed, we will probably see a, steady readjustment of the critical balance. To South Africans who realise how much Baker has done for architecture in this country, his work at Delhi is of supreme interest. Mr. Robert Byron, critic, has detracted not an atom from his splendid triumph; Mr. Robert Byron, photographer, has given us a perfect record of Baker's Delhi for which we are grateful.