couples, with a further 80, 000 to 100, 000 to replace houses that were worn out. As to the slum areas, speakers from northern cities reported that some progress had been made, but it was agreed that the root of the problem had hardly been touched. The Conference adopted a resolution recording its emphatic opinion that, in view of the serious national deficiency, still existing, of houses at weekly rents within the means of low-paid wage-earners, it is imperative there should be no reduction in the housing subsidy. A resolution in the Town Planning Section of the Conference demanded a legal amendment to enable the majority of local authorities promoting a regional planning scheme to be able to compel a recalcitrant minority to participate, and not to hold up the scheme by refusing to co-operate.
The attitude of the Holborn Borough Council to the architectural profession has again been criticised by Mr. C. Fitzroy Doll, F. R. I. B. A., who is himself a member of the Council. Some time ago, Mr. Doll provoked something of a storm by challenging the right of the Council to entrust the preparation of drawings for a new housing scheme to the borough surveyor. On that occasion he was defeated and the work proceeded. At the last meeting of the Council, a proposal was tabled for reconstructing the men’s second-class private baths, and in this connection it transpired that the Baths Committee proposed temporarily to employ a quantity surveyor in the borough surveyor’s office. Mr. Doll protested against the work being done in the Council’s offices at all, remarking that the intention was probably to obtain an assistant from an architect’s office in the neighbourhood. The taking out of quantities, he said, should be entrusted to one of the 300 starving architects who were paying rates to the Council. “ It is a most scandalous thing, ” he proceeded, “ and contrary to every tenet of every properly-constituted Council. The work should legitimately go to professional men who, as I have said, are paying rates to this Borough. ’’ Councillor Loasby moved that, after the drawings were prepared, they should be sent out to a quantity surveyor at the ordinary percentage rates, thus enabling the Council to know exactly what the work would cost. Councillor Doll seconded. After further discussion, Alderman Sir Geo. Parker — a solicitor and former Mayor of the Borough — moved: ˮThat the question be now put, ’’ and further debate was stifled. Councillor Loasby, for some unexplained reason, then withdrew his amendment, and the recommendation of the Committee was adopted.
Two articles in recent issues of The Evening Standard reveal Miss Edith Shackleton as a strong admirer of the “Modernist” movement in architec
ture — of the type of steel and concrete house, associated with the names of Le Corbusier, Mallet-Stevens, Gropius and others, which we have been illustrating during the past three weeks. This enthusiasm is not, apparently, shared by “one of our fashionable and
belauded younger architects, ” who, by arrangement of the distinguished woman writer, was asked quite seriously whether he would undertake a house of this type, or knew of an English architect who would, and met the enquiry with a burst of laughter. Miss Shackleton avers that people who are living in Paris in these modern homes “are neither labour-saving maniacs nor blank-minded dullards who know nothing of Classic tradition, but highly-cultured persons with an elegant mode of life ”; and rejects the idea that such houses are ‘‘mere makeshifts, ” or “the cheapest
possible shelters for the poor. ” The last idea would not have occurred to us, for steel and concrete on a small scale, and in the individual designs we see at
Plassy and Stuttgart, hardly suggest the idea of cheapness. The Stuttgart Housing Exhibition, as a congregation of specimens, can hardly be fairly judged on cost, although the basic idea was to solve the problem of middle- and working-class housing for that part of Germany, at any rate. Yet it is the factor of cost, in regard to these “modernist” houses, that
we have heard very little about, and it is of more than passing importance. For if the problem of middle- or working-class housing is to be solved on the lines of “modernism, ” it must resolve itself into an endless repetition of one or two types; and so far from achieving the gay variety with which individual designers have dowered the Stuttgart show, we may get a bleak monotony beside which “the quaint old
worldery of the speculative builder, ” much as we hate it, will become not merely endurable but welcome. This question of cost is, as we said before, important, and what it is essential to know is how far the cost of forms, shuttering and the extra labour of reinforced concrete construction, is offset by the seemingly thin walls of these card-like houses, the large area of glass (usually cheaper than walling), and the abolition of all normal architectural detail. The, to unaccustomed English eyes, eccentricity of many of the designs need not be taken too seriously; a certain exaggeration is the accepted method of advertising a new art movement in an age when the gaze of the public is to be attracted only by seriously affronting it. The construction is the more important part of the ˮmodernist’’ architecture, and we should be glad to
see some of our own designers experimenting in an Anglicised version of it. Possibly the second architect that Miss Shackleton thinks of ringing up will prove more amenable to the idea. Its success or failure here, however, will rest on cost, and we emphasise this because it is apparent that Miss Shackleton has rather expensive ideas in housing. Luxurious heating systems, seamless floors, dust-proof fittings, the glow of concealed lighting, are but a few of the items she mentions, and though all are obtainable, they are more within the reach of the wealthy than the average householder. We have more than once referred to the financial difficulty of meeting the educated woman’s notions of an ideal home, and to the fact that it must, except for a few lucky ones, be a compromise between her purse and her desires. The millionaire can, of course, get nearly anything he wants in the way of a domicile; the recent Paris Exhibition of Decorative Art was devised for his especial benefit, but it has had the unfortunate effect of making many less-favoured people discontented with their domestic lot. We must except “The Londoner” of The Evening News, who devotes one of his inimitable little essays to recording his satisfaction and contentment with his “early-Victorian ” home, who finds his windows as large as he would have them, yet not so large as to be unsuitable for “our cold, wet climate’’; and who girds gently at the lady who quarrels with the custom of “laying of brick upon brick” that has obtained since the dawn of history. “I think, ” he says, “that we have not yet found a better way of building’’; and that was the opinion
of numerous experts who considered and tried scores of new materials and methods after the war for the better speeding up of housing. By all means let us test the new ideas, but those who are looking for housing eldorados, “with all modern improvements, ” would do well to steady their ambitions by consulting the return of incomes which the Registrar-General prepares for our education each year. The public will better appreciate what architects have done and can do for them in housing if they first devote some study to the economics of the question.
The attitude of the Holborn Borough Council to the architectural profession has again been criticised by Mr. C. Fitzroy Doll, F. R. I. B. A., who is himself a member of the Council. Some time ago, Mr. Doll provoked something of a storm by challenging the right of the Council to entrust the preparation of drawings for a new housing scheme to the borough surveyor. On that occasion he was defeated and the work proceeded. At the last meeting of the Council, a proposal was tabled for reconstructing the men’s second-class private baths, and in this connection it transpired that the Baths Committee proposed temporarily to employ a quantity surveyor in the borough surveyor’s office. Mr. Doll protested against the work being done in the Council’s offices at all, remarking that the intention was probably to obtain an assistant from an architect’s office in the neighbourhood. The taking out of quantities, he said, should be entrusted to one of the 300 starving architects who were paying rates to the Council. “ It is a most scandalous thing, ” he proceeded, “ and contrary to every tenet of every properly-constituted Council. The work should legitimately go to professional men who, as I have said, are paying rates to this Borough. ’’ Councillor Loasby moved that, after the drawings were prepared, they should be sent out to a quantity surveyor at the ordinary percentage rates, thus enabling the Council to know exactly what the work would cost. Councillor Doll seconded. After further discussion, Alderman Sir Geo. Parker — a solicitor and former Mayor of the Borough — moved: ˮThat the question be now put, ’’ and further debate was stifled. Councillor Loasby, for some unexplained reason, then withdrew his amendment, and the recommendation of the Committee was adopted.
Two articles in recent issues of The Evening Standard reveal Miss Edith Shackleton as a strong admirer of the “Modernist” movement in architec
ture — of the type of steel and concrete house, associated with the names of Le Corbusier, Mallet-Stevens, Gropius and others, which we have been illustrating during the past three weeks. This enthusiasm is not, apparently, shared by “one of our fashionable and
belauded younger architects, ” who, by arrangement of the distinguished woman writer, was asked quite seriously whether he would undertake a house of this type, or knew of an English architect who would, and met the enquiry with a burst of laughter. Miss Shackleton avers that people who are living in Paris in these modern homes “are neither labour-saving maniacs nor blank-minded dullards who know nothing of Classic tradition, but highly-cultured persons with an elegant mode of life ”; and rejects the idea that such houses are ‘‘mere makeshifts, ” or “the cheapest
possible shelters for the poor. ” The last idea would not have occurred to us, for steel and concrete on a small scale, and in the individual designs we see at
Plassy and Stuttgart, hardly suggest the idea of cheapness. The Stuttgart Housing Exhibition, as a congregation of specimens, can hardly be fairly judged on cost, although the basic idea was to solve the problem of middle- and working-class housing for that part of Germany, at any rate. Yet it is the factor of cost, in regard to these “modernist” houses, that
we have heard very little about, and it is of more than passing importance. For if the problem of middle- or working-class housing is to be solved on the lines of “modernism, ” it must resolve itself into an endless repetition of one or two types; and so far from achieving the gay variety with which individual designers have dowered the Stuttgart show, we may get a bleak monotony beside which “the quaint old
worldery of the speculative builder, ” much as we hate it, will become not merely endurable but welcome. This question of cost is, as we said before, important, and what it is essential to know is how far the cost of forms, shuttering and the extra labour of reinforced concrete construction, is offset by the seemingly thin walls of these card-like houses, the large area of glass (usually cheaper than walling), and the abolition of all normal architectural detail. The, to unaccustomed English eyes, eccentricity of many of the designs need not be taken too seriously; a certain exaggeration is the accepted method of advertising a new art movement in an age when the gaze of the public is to be attracted only by seriously affronting it. The construction is the more important part of the ˮmodernist’’ architecture, and we should be glad to
see some of our own designers experimenting in an Anglicised version of it. Possibly the second architect that Miss Shackleton thinks of ringing up will prove more amenable to the idea. Its success or failure here, however, will rest on cost, and we emphasise this because it is apparent that Miss Shackleton has rather expensive ideas in housing. Luxurious heating systems, seamless floors, dust-proof fittings, the glow of concealed lighting, are but a few of the items she mentions, and though all are obtainable, they are more within the reach of the wealthy than the average householder. We have more than once referred to the financial difficulty of meeting the educated woman’s notions of an ideal home, and to the fact that it must, except for a few lucky ones, be a compromise between her purse and her desires. The millionaire can, of course, get nearly anything he wants in the way of a domicile; the recent Paris Exhibition of Decorative Art was devised for his especial benefit, but it has had the unfortunate effect of making many less-favoured people discontented with their domestic lot. We must except “The Londoner” of The Evening News, who devotes one of his inimitable little essays to recording his satisfaction and contentment with his “early-Victorian ” home, who finds his windows as large as he would have them, yet not so large as to be unsuitable for “our cold, wet climate’’; and who girds gently at the lady who quarrels with the custom of “laying of brick upon brick” that has obtained since the dawn of history. “I think, ” he says, “that we have not yet found a better way of building’’; and that was the opinion
of numerous experts who considered and tried scores of new materials and methods after the war for the better speeding up of housing. By all means let us test the new ideas, but those who are looking for housing eldorados, “with all modern improvements, ” would do well to steady their ambitions by consulting the return of incomes which the Registrar-General prepares for our education each year. The public will better appreciate what architects have done and can do for them in housing if they first devote some study to the economics of the question.