No_2_February_1969 — Page 38

standards are new materials and new forms.

Amongst the words we use in favour of our architectural past are "charm”, "character", "dignity”; on the whole we embue our largely masonry archi- tectural past with a general quality of softness, and even kindness that it in fact does not inherently possess, but is endowed with it out of contrast with its brash contemporary neighbours.

These same buildings formed the cities like Chicago and Boston which prompted so much of the "anti-city" literature that met with little dissen- sion until the last decade or two. Al- though these characteristics - for what

clearly they are not the only qualities that we could find desirable in build- ings. Not the least of these qualities is an honesty in architecture expressing the culture of its time.

Cities experiencing their second wave of central renewal, for many reasons often experience a wave of even larger buildings. Such cities al- ready start to see older, once unpardon- able intrusions into their city skyline in a more sympathetic light. Time alone may therefore render the de- fence of scale unnecessary.

Arguments about non-human scale and the impersonality of our new buildings are the likely products of ever reason, contrast or not are most

an early acquaintanceship between the notable in the buildings of the past, layman and this new building era. Put

"The crispness, sparkle and the precise sharp forms inspire an imagery not thought un- flattering in today's business circles'

another way, new forms and expres- sions are likely to meet with under- standable initial resistance since change of any kind brings discomfort to most people.

No one could argue the case for 'boxes' on the basis of individual build- ings; but who could argue that where curtain wall forms have completely dominated an environment the results are not aesthetically rewarding. It is the quality produced by reflections between the buildings themselves that are the equivalent of the patina we find on the buildings of old.

The crispness, sparkle and the pre- cise sharp forms inspire an imagery not thought unflattering in today's business circles. The power and precision of these buildings and the environments they create are as near as we have come to interpreting our age of space technology and computerization.

New scale

Any block face from the past was always made up of a variety of build- ings showing a distinct lack of con- cern for their immediate neighbours. While our contemporary patterns are the most stark and the constrasts more vivid at the level of the block front, the buildings as elements are corres- pondingly larger. It has become fruit- less to pass judgment based on facades, at all times it is the total environment with which we are concerned after making allowances for how it will be in a more final form. We are building according to a new scale, out of scale only with the expressions of the past, valid as they may have been.

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When Unilever House made its New York debut it awakened us all to a period of transition a period during which our aesthetic sensibilities will be sorely tried and a period from which new standards will emerge.

It has not been the intention of this article to suggest that curtain walls are things with which we have to be satisfied. However, examination of arguments against them shows a funda- mental weakness in ignoring the ex- planations for them. They are not without a quality and integrity of their own, and finally their architects may be held to blame only to the extent that they have mirrored our commer- cial pressures.

Author

Mr. Terence P. Byrnes, ARAIA, MCP (Yale), is a lecturer with the Department of Architecture, Univer- sity of Hong Kong.

Far East BUILDER, February 1969