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Arachne: A Literary Journal. No. 1

A House And A Handbook

A House And A Handbook

The Architectural Centre has given the people of Wellington their first real chance to appraise a modern house in contrast to the mixture of eclecticism, builder's streamline and dullness that most of us live in. And in order to help us understand the basis on which it was designed the Centre has published a handbook in which we are told that 'The Architectural Centre consists of people who believe that good and decent living in our modern world must be consciously planned for; that good planning means good design, in large things and small; that good design rests ultimately on need and purpose. The general aim of the Centre, therefore, is to assert and maintain the value of design as an element of living, for the community and the individual.' This seems to be a half truth containing an unfortunate premiss upon which to base an action that is being made vigorously public. Good design can well enrich a life but that does not hold true for everybody. Most people indeed are suspicious, and for the same reason that the Centre is apparently suspicious of theory and 'highbrow' ideas that many people regard as the higher products of human activity, an attitude revealed in the last few issues of their journal Design Review. After all, good design is not an absolute; it is tied all the way to the spiritual, ethical, social physical and aesthetic values of the beholder, what he believes in at the present time and also what, within the limits of his conditions, he may develop into believing. These limits have to be remembered. No cultural renaissance is possible without remembering them. This demands a deep understanding of human beliefs and actions and that does include an understanding after all, of dogma and its use, which involves revolt against dogma.

The handbook goes on to describe how good design was achieved, resting of course, on need and purpose, and written as Hollywood makes its pictures for an audience with adolescent minds. . . .

'Most houses are the brain child of three parents—an owner, a designer, and a contractor. The demonstration House had only one. Despite this state of near orphan-hood it was not a neglected baby.

'The house was conceived in the spring.'. . .! The section titled 'A Family Matter' reveals little analysis of human relationships, but, surprisingly, a concern for mechanical efficiency, orientation, etc. Elsewhere, a vague nod is given to the uses of disconnected rooms.

However the House itself is no standard Hollywood product. It does make a bold challenge to many absurd conventions, re-asserts the value of sun, colour and texture in house design and a certain freshness and straightforwardness of detail. But the limitations of its background are revealed in many ways, especially by the cost. £4,444 is unreal, and poor propaganda to boot, when the accommodation offered the children makes the traditional ten by eight bedrooms in the spec. built equivalent seem the height of luxury in privacy, size and convenience. On the other hand the prospective owner can look forward to seemingly acres of glass, a patio and large windows that embrace a view of state houses. The see-saw between miserliness and extravagance never seems to rest on a horizontal plane of adequacy. Why should eighty per cent. of a house be flooded with sun, or even light for that matter? Contrast enriches and emphasizes. A darker and more introspective area (surely of some use) would have dramatized sun through floor to ceiling glazing and

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shadow would have thrown into vivid relief the furniture and other objects subjected to the process of good design. It may even enhance the spatial form of a house, which, if it is right, does not necessarily mean spaciousness beyond the normal need. These things may be a matter of personal taste, but they at least provide some limits other than exuberance.

Similarly a garden may be used in contrast to the sophistication of a sitting area (as suggested by the House). But unfortunately the patio seems to have been arrived by a desire to have the one small wind-sheltered garden related as well to the kitchen, the utility room and the children's bedrooms (in a hesitant fashion by way of a corridor). All this at expense of plan and pocket. A sheltered court is easily gained by way of a humble wall: the house can be itself. The handbook' claims that the U-shaped plan is infinitely more liveable than a box-shaped one, a claim that is not substantiated by history of the House. The children have little or no privacy of their own despite the two living areas. There is no place to leave toys and the other paraphanalia of childhood lying around. Is there any virtue in tidying up every time? And can everything be tidied up anyway? there is no place that is essentially their own. For they are thrown carelessly into the life of the parents through the lack of differentiation which is emphasised by the fact that both parents and visitors have to trek past their curtained and glassed-off cubicles every time they wish to use the master bedroom. Again, an invitation that children will accept at times, is the open-ness and lack of definition of the more adult parts of the House, which will be, at times, an imposition on the parents and their visitors. Children are different beings from adults and though they develop through contact with an adult world, their emotions and reason are obviously dissimilar and are employed in a remote world of their own much of the time. There are many occasions especially for older children, on which there should be no reason why they live their own life despite adults and if a measure of privacy does not exist, they will seek it elsewhere. Which makes the claim 'a house to stay home in' rather odd. Naturally when they are younger the children play around the feet of the mother and for this purpose the utility room is apparently designed. But the room will be put to many uses, such as storing books, for the living room does not offer much provision for these and other things. The eternal putting away of things after each use would therefore be beyond most housewives. Indeed the very inflexibility of the House would make many sigh for l'ancien regime of boxes and corridors. I am not suggesting that the children be put in a castle at the bottom of the garden but that a balance could be reached by a line of reasoning that does not purport to be either highbrow or revolutionary.

The House, then, appears to be designed for an idealized family to a particular aesthetic that places emphasis on design rather than on architecture in its human and spatial senses. In contrast to the surrounding mess it is almost alone and certainly a self-consciously virtuous voice.

F.S.