1941-05-22 — Page 23

THE CHINA MAIL, MAY 22, 1941.

CHINA MAIL

WINDSOR ́ HOUSE

DAKAR ROAD

If it is true, as reported, that fallen France, dóm- inated by Germany, is building a connecting railroad across the desert from the Mediterranean to the South Atlantic port of Dakar this is an act which must be recognised as purely military.

south

The railroad from Oran, Algeria, is ap- parently being linked across a 1,250-mile gap with the road eastward from Dakar, West Africa. Once the trains are roli- ing, Dakar becomes a mil- itary base immediately sustained by European supplies and munitions -- not an isolated outpost but a powerful Nazi thrust.

And why, in wartime, should France set up this advance base?

The reason is unmis- takable. Vichy is building| because Berlin gave the order, and Berlin is bene- ! fiting immediately also, because German supply companies and German influences in the osten- sibly French company are getting the profits. Ger- many has use for such a

Gates

VICHY

Q.E.D.

A City of Towers

For the last Afteen

year's

Architects always begin by con- contact, however one may pre- mote certain eminent architectssidering their buildings in relation tenil to diske al. with one's fel-

military road, and is get-and written and talked about a city needest for such a elty" Obviously express lift is not contact.

and town-planners have dreamt to their sites. What kind of site is low-nen. Shooting by them in an

ting it.

that a big town should Έχει

already planned in that way, and only a

One of skyscraper towers, not welded one on a flat plain and with good must be able to see them if not to Dug in

together into a congested mass as įmaterial underneath for founda- hear them, and from the tower securely at:

in New York, but spread out, one lions. It must be a large plain one would only be able to see Dakar and connected tuto every quarter of a mile, so that even if the towers are only to be them as ants on the paths below.

cach receives the maximum Europe by direct rail, Hit-sunlight and air.

of five hundred feet high, or halfThe skyscraper city, then, might We have even that of the tallest in New York. be the satellite town, but the op- ler would look out on the seen something of it on the Bims They must stand up strongly. postte way round, it

Mr Wells': "The Shape

workplace narrowest gap of the At-Things to Come".

elegantly, and independently from instead of a dormitory. That is Le Corbusier the plain, like the towers of a possible. One could leave the lantic, only 1,600 miles was, I think, the first to suggest distant cathedral, to look their warm, comfortable town on the across. Aircraft

rebest.

earth each morning to go to one's work among the clouds and re- negotiate the flight from fow weeks ago the American Two inventions have Dakar to Natal, Brazil, in whom the King's Gold Medal was the braced, steel-framed structure, jarebileet Frank Lloyd Wright, to about the skyscraper. The first is

brought turn each evening.

eight hours. Ships could recently awarded. has been mak-which will stand any wind pres-away from each other

The two might be a mile or two g the same suggestion for the

ic do it in half the time re-rebuilding of London. There was loads.

there i sure and will carry enormous | were a system of fast electric quired to go

from New a scheme, too. For building beyond lift, which can nuke vertical tra- ground, connecting the living town The second is the electric trains, perhaps in tubes below York to Liverpool. Brazil which was to be a city of sky- the Urals a new capital for Russi

with a station in the basement of becomes an easy stepping scrapers. Mr. Alfred

each skyscraper. Some such com- munal form of conveyance would be necessary until we reach the s stage at which everyone has his or her own car-and afterwards. Otherwise, when that stage Is reached, not unly would all the garden space between the towers be replaced by parking space, but even with towers a quarter of a mile apart the congestion on the Mr.roads at peak times would be

Bossom. M.P.. the English architect who

stone for any advancing has built a number of tall build- European power-Brazil, ings in the United States, prepar-

ed a report on the project. nearly three times as far away from New York as from Dakar!

the railhead

at

The idea, then, has long been in the air and is clearly attractive in itself. Let us consider it little as applied to ourselves to- for it may be that in a short

By Professor

C. H. Reilly

There is a potential in-time we shall have an opportunity vel faster than horizontal. vasion base which has of building such a city if we really Harvey Corbett, the American something we have not yet ex- been ignored by Ameri-want to.

can isolationists, enamor-

a

architect of the Bush Buildings in perienced. New York and London, who knows both cities almost equally well, has said he can pay a dozen out of the towns in one direction If we are to take the factories ed by the width of the of any European power business calls in New York in the there is clearly something to be North Atlantic.

we have not interfered

time it takes him to pay two in said for taking the business offices London. Traffic There at Dakar, once and shall not interfere.

blocks being equally bad in both towns, he at-away in another, and leaving the the rails are linked

centre to go back to domestic life. up, "But with the Govern-tributes the difference entirely to To live in the centre of a town lies a threat to the West ments who have declared buildings and to the speed of their Cheltenham, on the other, is

the heights of the New York like Chester, on the one hand, ar greater than

any that their independence and lifts.

very pleasant thing. To live there has arisen in all the 118 maintained it, and whose

and yet to do one's work 'in some These tall buildings, sometimes clear crystal city of quick-moving years since the Monroe independence we have, on with twenty to thirty thousand machines, lifts, cars, and electric Doctrine was proclaimed. great consideration and persons at work in each, lead to trains, where everything is de- the concentration of one type of signed for efficiency and clarity, The words so applicable on just principles, ac-office in one building. This fur-sounds at first sight a very "fine] in 1823 ring to-day with knowledged, we could not such a theme one cannot escape selves equal to it? Are our minds ther simplifies "contacting" (on arrangement, but are we our- a thousand times more view any interposition the American language) .one's sufficiently departmentalised? Don gravity and point:

for the purpose of op advantage

business associates. But the great we not, in the middle of work.

of "We owe it, therefore, pressing "them

the isolated, tall not only want to think of other] or con- tower building with windows on things now and then but to go out to candour and to the trolling in any other man- all sides is not just the saving of for a stroll for ten minutes amicable relations exist-ner their destiny, by an hour, but the working in the or look at the shops? One is al- a few minutes a day or even of an even visit a cafe or public-house ing between the United European power in any brightest atmosphere with a sense ways sorry for the managers of States and those powers other light than as the

of unlimited space round one. works, as well as for the workers, to declare that we should manifestation of an un-

who have to spend long hours A town of tall free standing every day in the same building, consider any attempt on friendly disposition to them would seem, then,

towers with

gardens between with perhaps a couple of visits to а find the canteen or to the directors' their part to extend their ward the United States" place for work, especially if one luncheon-room for meals as the system to any portion of In those tested words lie leaves one's tower. Is it equally I very much fear the lawyers, has a car to step into directly one only breaks. They are prisoners, this, hemisphere as dan- the message which has, in good for living in? Certainly not, architects, and business gerous to our peace and effect, been sent by Mr. isolation of the units which makes crystal towers, would be prison- I should say, because, the very thinking clear though is in their safety. With the existing Cordell Hull to Vichy it good for certain kinds of workers too. They might even be colonies or dependencies, Berlin.

would make it bad for most kinds come as hard as the gloss which of life. For life one must live in surrounds theme

and

יד,

.