to pay for; and the early clients for bath-rooms had not reached the present American (first-class) standard of a bath-room to each bedroom. The once a week regime was prevalent for a long time in even the best-regulated families. But if the client desires to approximate to the American standard, no one is more willing than the architect to fall in with his views. We can assure our contemporary, however, that in a number of the recent housing schemes, it has taken all an architect’s persuasive powers to induce some of the housing authorities (and in the North of England, too), to allow him to include even one bath in these dwellings. Similarly, in regard to garages, we should doubt whether any architect has failed to suggest such an addition since motor-cars became common. In fact, the inclusion of a garage within the curtilage of the small house has become almost a formula with architects, and has given them much needed relief in planning the bedroom floor. The bulk of our houses are still designed, however, by speculative builders, and, perhaps in consequence, “space for garage” is a common recommendation in
their advertisements. It is in designing theatres, however, that the architect is said to sin most deeply _bad sighting, worse acoustics and inadequate cloakrooms. Alas! too true. We admit some designers of theatres in the past were hardly entitled by training and accomplishment to be called architects. It is on record, we believe, that one of them forgot the gallery staircase in a certain celebrated house. Still, if the client decides to spend his money on rococco box fronts instead of reasonable dressing-rooms, what can the architect do? Our critic may congratulate himself that he has not been called upon to provide a large amount of accommodation with an inadequate sum of money on an inadequate site. Our contemporary must, however, apportion praise as well as blame in the right quarters. We scarcely think that the architect of London’s latest theatre would claim the palm of being ‘‘practical’’ because a garage is to
be erected next door to house the cars of the theatre s patrons. Surely the “practical” person in this con
nection is the building owner who is incurring the cost of an expensive site as well as the garage to go on it. If our critic thinks this over a bit, he may find an explanation for some of the other architectural sins.
The Westminster housing question has been given an unsavoury turn by the recent report of the City Council’s Housing Committee. It will be within the recollection of readers that the Westminster Housing Association, which comprises a number of well-known people who are residents and ratepayers of the City, has been carrying on a pertinacious campaign against the Council for its failure to remedy the overcrowding of working-class people by the provision of further housing accommodation. The statistics are not flattering to the Council, for overcrowding in Westminster is rife and basement dwellings are numbered in thousands. So far the Council have completed 40 flats and have 128 more in course of erection, not a very brilliant record in the nine years which have elapsed since the War. In this latest report of the Housing Committee, certain specified and prominent members of the Housing Association are alleged to have contributed to the congestion and overcrowding of which they complain by having built or acquired houses in what was, previously, a working-class area, thus disposing the poorer class of tenants who formerly resided there. It. is surprising to find a public body descending to petty personalities of the tu quoque order, but this superficial smartness would hardly carry conviction to anyone acquainted with the particular area of Westminster concerned. Much of the property here, which we believe belongs to the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, had been pulled down or was empty and derelict before the War; and, probably, but for the operation of the Rent Restrictions Act and the housing shortage, the rest would have gone the same way. Obviously, the ground landlords, in view of its proximity to the Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, were planning development for large commercial buildings, blocks of flats, etc., on an improved value scale. Much of the property that still remains is unfit for human habitation, and it is no credit to the City Council that it has not been dealt with. Obviously, if they had exercised their powers and acquired some of this “ripe for development”
property as sites for new blocks of working-class flats, the intrusion of “well-to-do” people of which they
complain could not have taken place. It is hardly logical, therefore, when they have made no effort to secure the ground themselves, to cavil at those who do, more especially as the better class of buildings erected mean an appreciable addition to the civic income. Indeed, the petulance and pique which the Housing Committee’s report discloses is the less understandable because the policy of the City Council, if it has any, on this housing question would seem to be that Westminster must be reserved for well-to-do people and that it is no place for the working-class or poorer members of the community. Opinions expressed by individual members of the Council some time ago gave colour to that opinion; and the civic body has rejected all sites suggested by the Housing Association for rehousing schemes on the ground of expense. One member of the Council said that it would be impossible to house in Westminster all the people who worked there during the day. With that we agree. We do not suppose that more than a small minority of the people who are employed in Westminster desire to live there; but we do not think that that fact absolves the Council from making any effort to meet the wants of those who do so desire, or the nature of whose occupation makes it imperative that they should reside near their work. The inaction of the Council rather suggests indifference; if the poorer section of the community insists on living in Westminster, where it is not wanted, it must put up with the present conditions. If it objects to the overcrowding, it can get out; and if it goes out into the adjoining districts and adds to the congestion there
well, that is no affair of the Westminster Council. It is not likely to be a popular attitude, and it does not become a logical one until the Westminster Council has dealt with all the slums in its area and until all available ground in the city is covered with modern and occupied structures, so that the possibility of any further development is precluded. It is a great mistake, however, to allow any considerable section of a very large city to be developed wholly for one class of building, or one class of people, and much of London s present difficulties in the matter of transport and street congestion in due to its past faults of development. The Metropolis has been developed as one city, instead of a congerie of cities, and the unwieldy size to which it is growing threatens soon to make it unworkable on the old lines. That is an aspect of development to which the Housing Committee of the Westminster City Council might apply themselves with more advantage and more dignity than in drafting personal attacks on their own ratepayers.
The West Ham Corporation have lodged objection to the scheme of the Electricity Commissioners for the South-East of England on the grounds that the scheme is incomplete; that it is based on out-of-date figures; is unfair towards the West Ham station; and, generally, is not such as complies with the provisions of the Act.