No_1_February_and_March__1939 — Page 20

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Hong Kong Builder

After 1900, the more florid build- ing used the stone carver a lot and the sculptor occasionally, but mural painters like Brangwyn and sculptors like Henry Poole may no longer depend on an active life from an architectural

source.

There is, of course, that pathetic discussion among the artists that architecture, which should be their first patron, has let them down, but they fail to realise two things. Con- temporary art is either the portrayal of a scene or a moodi.e., a Forest at Dawn, View of Assisi or Portrait of a Young Man. It is merely a realistic, if not materialistic, record, which may, or may not, be sensitive. Or the painter is precious in the manner of a futurist or impressionist. In short, the craftsman remains to paint his individuality from a tube on to a canvas for the purpose of fram- ing, exhibiting and, eventually, selling. In contemporary architecture, there Craft will depart is no craft left. from future architecture because the building will be a result of the ma- chine. Almost every element of the contemporary building is produced by the machine, and the art is self- contained if it expresses the nature of its birth. Hanging a bas-relief of bird, beast or flower on to the struc- ture is insincere and even sentimen- tal.

The solution lies in the abstract artists. Cezanne was architectural inasmuch as he attempted the repre- sentation of an idea. The surrealists have produced a less architectural abstract art, and such individuals as Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, and Moholy Nagy-painter, sculptor, and designer are incredibly near in their solutions to the modern architect.

"GREY GROUND"

JOHN PIPER

ARCHITECTURAL FIGURE

FRANK DOBSON

Two very opposed forms of thought; the one almost experi- mental in its juxtaposition of shapes and colour; the other a subjective treatment designed to fall into the architectural lines of the building with which the design requires to be incorporated

It is not realised that this is so. The trinity, moving along the lines of the machine and abstract art to the entire exclusion of realism, will arrive at a point when one artist of any of the three so-called arts will be capable of feeling the nature of the other two. The principle of architecture, painting, and sculpture must be the same.

The claim sounds fanatical, but, in the past six years, the line that architecture is taking is clear. It is clear that sculptors like Moore and Dobson have demanded to seek an architectural expression, and the painters Nash and Nicholson have arrived at a similar conclusion in their medium.

I would like to have made the issue clearer, but new words require to be found to explain precisely the new form of æsthetics. Very few architects are yet able to use the other arts intelligently, particularly in their new forms; and one of the rare instances I have come across is a metal house in America, outside of which is a metal tripod supporting a sphere and long arm. It is what has become known as a mobile construction.

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