Addressing the Royal Society of Arts in London some weeks ago Mr. Howard Robinson surveyed the recent history of architecture.
The progress made in architecture since the last war did not have its origins entirely in the results of that war. The germ of what has developed in the past 25 years existed before 1914. The war was one of the factors which accelerated the rapidity of architectural evolution, because a war period is one in which a critical self-examination takes place, a sort of mental stock-taking. That occurred in 1914-18, and is occurring again in this war. Architects, being largely unemployed just now, are doing some serious thinking, the results of which are going to be important to the building industry of which they are a part, and eventually to the public which they serve. When it is realized that nearly a quarter of the insured working population of these isles is dependent on the building industry, it can be seen how important it is that its energies and output should be well directed.
The pre-1914 spade-work, which shifted architectural design out of its rut of revivals, was done by a number of very creative architects who felt dissatisfaction with the failure of their art to keep abreast of current problems in planning and building technique and who felt that the accepted forms of building did not present a true expression of the age. The history of this genesis of a new movement has been written already, though not perhaps exhaustively. One point, however, which has been largely overlooked is the influence exerted in architecture by painting, which worked through individual contacts rather than through a general receptivity on the part of architects who have perhaps been unaware of the extent to which pioneering amongst painters and sculptors has in the last 50 years preceded æsthetic experiment in architectural form.
The shortage of bricks and bricklayers after the war brought forth all sorts of substitute construction. Houses were built of steel frame covered with wire mesh and sprayed with a cement gun. Others were made of concrete, in block or poured form. Some of-the homes for heroes were to be made of cow-dung or pounded mud. It was a great moment for reconstruction.
There were many disappointments and many heart-broken tenants toiling over the stove that heated four rooms and boiled the bath water. But some very good design came out of it, housing by Bonnell and James, for example, and useful technical knowledge was gained which will come in handy this next time. Some of the older architects were still there, going strong; but the younger ones were on the march, doing big things like the creation of Welwyn Garden City by Louis de Soissons, this being his first real job and a big one for a beginner. And then suddenly came Holland to touch off the plague of the modern.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.