1941-05-22 — Page 39

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THE CHINA MAIL, MAY 22, 1941.

CHINA MAIL

-WINDSOR HOUSE

DAKAR ROAD

If it is true, as reported, that fallen France, dom- inated by Germany, is building а 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 roll- ing, Dakar becomes a mil- itary base immediately sustained by European supplies and munitions not an isolated outpost but 21 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 į getting the profits. Ger- many has use for such a military road, and is get- ting it.

Zater

VICHY

Q.E.D.

$

A City of Towers

years

For the last Atten more certain eminent architects and written and talked about a city and town-planners have dreamt

of skyscraper towers, nut welded together into a congested mass is at in New York, but spread out, one to to every quarter of a mile, so that each receives the maximum Hit-sunlight and air.

Ser

Architects always begin by con-contact, however one may pre- sidering their buildings in relation | tend to diske it, with one's fel- needed for such a city? Obviously express hit is not contact. to their sites. What kind of site is low-men, Shooting by them in alt One one on a flat plain and with good must be able to see them if not to material underneath for founda- hear them, and from the tower Dug in securely

tions. 1t must be a large plain [one would only be able to Dakar and connected

even if the towers are only to be them as ants on the paths below. Europe by direct rail,

five hundred feet high, or half The skyscraper city, then, might 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 films They must stand up strongly, posite way round. al workplace

in Mr Wells's "The Shape narrowest gap of the At-Things to Come",

of elegantly, and independently friam 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 the warm, remiortable town on the earth each morning to go to one's work among the clouds and re- turn each evening.

of

We have even

that a big town should be re- best.

across. Aircraft already planned in that way, and only a negotiate the flight from few weeks ago the American

Two inventions have brought Dakar to Natal, Brazil, in whom the King's Gold Medal was the braced, steel-framed structure, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, to about the skyscraper. The first is

The two might be a mile or two eight hours. Ships could recently awarded, has been mak-which will stand any wind pres-away from each other 11 there do it in half the time re-rebuilding of London. There was loads.

ng the same suggestion for the sure and will rarry enormous were a system of fast electric The second is the electric trains, perhaps in tubes below quired to go from New scheme, too, for building beyond lift, which can muke vertical tra- ground, connecting the living town

the Urals a new capital for Russi

M.P., the English architect who

York to Liverpool. Brazil which was to be a city of sky- becomes an easy stepping serapers. Mr. Alfred Bussom. stone for any advancing has built a number of tall build- European power-Brazil, ings in the United States, prepar- nearly three times as fared a report on the project. away from New York as from the railhead Dakar!

at

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

By Professor C. H. Reilly

There is a potential in-ume we shaft have an opportunity vel faster than horizontal. Mr. vasion base which has of building such a city if we really Harvey Corbett, the American been ignored by Ameri- can isolationists, enamor-

want to.

architect of the Bush Buildings in New York and London, who knows both diles almost equally well, has said he can pay a dozen

of

with a station in the basement of Jench skyscraper. Some such com- munal form of conveyance would be necessary until we reach the stage at which everyone has his for her own car-and afterwards. Otherwise, when that stage is reached, not only 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 roads at peak times would be something we have not yet ex- perienced.

if we are to take the factories

21

Are our minds

business associates. But the great we not, in the middle of work · of the isolated, tall not only want to think of other

out of the towns in one direction 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 affices London. Traffic blocks being There at Dakar, once and shall not interfere.

away in another, and leaving the equally bad in both towns, he at-centre to go back to domestic life, the rails are linked up,| "But with the Govern-tributes the difference entirely to To live in the centre of a town lies a threat to the Westments who have declared buildings and to the speed of their Cheltenham, on the other, is

the heights

the New York like Chester, on the one hand, or 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?

ther simplifies "contacting" (on arrangement, but are we our a thousand times more view any interposition the American language) one's sufficiently departmentalised? Do gravity and point:

for the purpose of op advantage "We owe it, therefore, pressing "them 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- 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

works, as well as for the workers, who have to spend long hours to declare that we should manifestation of an un- A town of tall free standing every day in the same building. towers with gardens between with perhaps a couple of visits to consider any attempt on friendly disposition to them would seem, then, a Ane 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 has a car to step into directly one only breaks. They are prisoners, system to any portion of In those tested words lie this hemisphere as dan- the message which has, in gerous to our peace and effect, been sent by Mr. safety. With the existing Cordell Hull to Vichy and colonies or dependencies, Berlin.

T

or

a few minutes a day or even of an even visit a cafe or public-house

of unlimited space round one.

leaves one's tower. Is it equally 1 very much fear the lawyers, good for living in? Certainly not, architects. and business men, isolation of, the units which makes crystal towers, would be prison- I should say, because the very thinking clear thoughts in their it good for certain kinds of workers too. They might even be- would make it bad for most kinds come as hard as the glass which of life. For life one must live in surrounds them.

Fant