Fashions in Art and Architecture
by
Cedric
Astbury,
AA Dip,
FRIBA
F, in looking at history, events seem to have been simpler and changes more straightforward than is the case in our own day, it is only because time has hidden all but the strongest movements.
All the restless surgings which have died unfulfilled are forgotten and, in outlining the progress of an age, the historian is often obliged to omit such facts as do not directly advance his theories.
To portray a true picture of any age, the written word is insufficient, and it is of great value to study the products of the time, to gain a balanced picture of a period. It is in such things as architecture and dress that civilisation leaves its truest record, because it is its most unconscious record. At no point in history is it possible to separate the elements of taste in dress from taste in architecture and furniture, or in fact any other
art.
Although many people have tried to describe the influence one art has on another, it is easier to see that similar external influences affect all the arts at one time. Thus, politics, society, religion, liturgy and large move- ments of races and their common occupations, deter- mine to some extent what shall be made, or built and in what way.
At this point the conditions for each art change must be judged in their relation to science; that is to say, taking into account the nature and limitations of the materials available, and the way the product ex- presses and obeys the facts and laws of construction.
Judging Results
Discovery or invention of a new material is often followed by its indiscriminate use in suitable and un- suitable situations. Only after disillusion has followed failure, is the material used exclusively in its most ap- propriate conditions. Recent examples are concrete and plastics.
However, as an expression of human life, there are other standards by which the results may be judged. We may fairly judge them by the measure of their success in fulfilling the ends for which they were designed, or even on the basis of the value of those ends. Both standards spring from the link with life of applied art.
For many years men have been intrigued by chang- ing fashions and, not being satisfied that a simple ex- planation is adequate, have delved deep into human psychology.
Gerhardt Roheim sees in fashion, particularly with regard to clothes, a manifestation of the mentality of a nation as a whole, and he endows a nation with a sex. In this way he suggests a possible reason for the mas- culinity noticeable in fashions immediately a nation dis- poses of its king.
He thinks that as the libido in man (but not in women) is concentrated the masculinity of the nation is drawn off as long as there is concentrated power at the head, leaving only feminine characteristics to the rest of the population.
Flugal, the German writer on costume, suggests as
Fur East Architect & Builder July, 1965
a possible reason for changing fashions that humans are incapable of concentrating on anything as a whole and therefore emphasise one part only, to attract attention to themselves, and continually change that emphasis to sustain the interest. It is true that an object is never seen instaneously in its complete form and that the human eye has to move round an object to assimilate it. This has been proved much more recently by ex- periments conducted with persons born blind, who have received their sight at an age of discretion.
Astronomers have also proved that it is the incessant movement of the eye which gives us the impression that a star is changing colour and twinkling; for indeed in this phenomenon, the distance of a star is of no im- portance but only its apparent size.
Another reason that has been suggested for changes in fashion is the money market, which ever country is the centre of trade setting the fashion which suits best the physical attributes of its people. It was seriously suggested before the war that while New York set the pace in the stock market skirts were short, whereas when the initiative passed to Paris skirts became longer because (it was said) American women had more beautiful legs.
Similar Spirit
To suggest, as has been done, that crinolines came in to hide the condition of a Spanish princess, is utter nonsense. No such trivialities are able to stem a tide which is inevitable.
Though similar forms may not be found in two arts, a similar spirit exists in things created contemporaneous- ly. An age which designed buildings to a pattern, and then squeezed its life into these shapes, would also be an age which would design clothes without regard to human needs, and would then adapt the body to them.
Whatover the reasons are for changes in fashion, it is certain that no professional designer is able to alter the course which fashions are taking.
It might be thought for example that after the fire of London, Sir Christopher Wren created a new fashion in architecture by rebuilding the churches of London in a classical style. This would only appear so if his art was studied in isolation but when it is realised that throughout Western Europe the forces of the renaissance were throbbing it is obvious that Wren was a product of the time and not the creator of it.
So it is of immense importance when studying social or political history to assimilate something of the products of the times, and conversely when studying the arts of a period the political and social history must be heeded.
Books
Large Panel Buildings, by G. Sebestyen. (C. R. Books Ltd., London, £4 4s.)
The aim of this book is to survey technical pro- gress by summarising and evaluating Hungarian and for- eign experience in precasting and assembling walls, ceil- ings and large prefabricated units.
Part I deals with the two most important groups of new materials used for large panel buildings: lightweight concrete and plastics. In Part II architectural and con- structional designs are fully described. Examples are taken from the experience of France, the Soviet Union, Denmark and other countries, as well as Hungary.
Part III deals with problems of structural design, including thermal and acoustic problems. Part IV con- siders the technology of prefabrication of large panels and the plants producing them. Storage, transportation and the hoisting of large panels is covered, and the neces- sary equipment described. Part V is concerned with the economic problems of these new building methods.
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