standard before one can get any re- sponse. Nevertheless, it is only a very small number, and in that case very sincere people, who bluntly declare that they do not understand questions concerned with beauty, and are not interested in it either, and therefore could not care less. Unfortunately it has often been proved that a small but fanatic group can get the majority of an otherwise rather sober-minded political and financial group to sacri- fice whatever imaginable beauty may lay in very doubtful projects.
This too cannot but result in in- creased responsibilities of the planner, when he has to weigh the demands for beauty against all the
the other possible demands. This is not only valid in cases where beauty comes into conflict with usefulness, but also when pure idealistic values are up against pure materialistic considera- tions. The latter is certainly an inevit- able postulate for the idealistic one. but without the first the latter has no meaning at all. Whatever the view- point may be, there are definite dif- ferences between nice and ugly re- sidential areas, etc. And I don't think that there can be any doubt that the feeling of well-being with all its im- plications is greater in nice surroundings.
THE CULPRITS
Who then is responsible for these many ugly surroundings and this state of affairs in general? There is firstly the speculator in real estate. But there are others as well, represented by that sort of attitude which asks: What form of a house is most econo- mical? How large or how high should it be? What is the cheapest way in which to give people the badly needed dwellings? Such questions are far too often and falsely given some kind of scientific flair. Real building economy cannot be achieved in this puerile way. The most expensive thing is fresh air because it is not only the question of ventilation but of town- planning. Fresh air for human beings costs acres of ground. parks and greens. Real building economy has to try to give a maximum of material, physical, and mental comfort at a reasonable price, having always the human being in mind. Good relation between quality and price always pays off, even in architecture.
A different question which can be dealt with more rationally is the exclusion of risks caused by vehicular traffic. Although systems for the separation of pedestrians from traffic have been introduced many decades ago, they don't seem to have gained the general approval they are entitled to for reasons of their recognised advantages. Arrangements of this
kind must inevitably be more expen- sive than others. And nobody is normally inclined to spend money for something which may happen but is very unlikely to happen. It is only when accidents occur that one comes to realise that cheaper schemes will have to be balanced by losses of human life or invalidity.
As
concerns townplanning it is obvious that from the family point of view the home itself will always play the most important part. The primary question for a planner must therefore always be that of the house-type: private cottage or block of flats, freely placed houses or arranged in rows, low or high-rise appartments. The ideal solution would be of course to give every family a house of their own. But in order not to cover im- mense areas, to keep communications short and schoorls shopping centres. etc. within reasonable distances, this cannot be more than a rather hypo- thetical solution. From the planning point of view it is therefore of great advantage to have to deal with a population which is accustomed live in a surrounding which mainly consists of tenement houses. This provides the chance of a desired concentration for economical reasons as well as its leaves enough open space not only in the outskirts, but within the very residential areas. This advantage is bigger still if there is the chance to build high houses (without changing the degree of land use). And here we have doubtlessly a line along which the demand for privacy, peace, health and preserva- tion of the natural rhythm in urban surrounding is reasonably feasable; and опе demand certainly can be fulfilled as well that of beauty.
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BARE FLOOR POLICY
Finally we have to look at the flat itself. If one is for economical rea- sons forced to work with standardiz- ed elements, this obviously leads to aesthetical problems, which may be difficult to solve. There is the main difficulty to develop variations with- out artificial or spasmodic means; all elements tend to produce monotony and sterility, which is getting worse when one flat is identical to the next. There is no reason, why it should be like that. Here one has to aim at an elastic standardization, a standardization which would not com- mand us, but one which we could command, a standardization with hu- man qualities. When we come to the dwelling, to things which are close to us, the matter is different--it becomes a question of the spirit, it becomes a question of the intellectual paragraph in standardization.
THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER-VOLUME 19, NUMBER 3
A standard flat cannot suit all pos- sible kinds of families. It cannot even suit one family's stages of de- velopment. There is
is probably no family that has the same demands and needs when the children have left the parental home as it had when it started off by marriage. It seems rather dubious to develop a standard flat for all possible demands, which in reality don't really suit anyone. The ideal solution therefore would be to provide the tenant with the amount of floorspace he is able to pay for and to leave the rest with him. He then may divide that space up in livingroom, bedrooms etc., or whatever he likes within the limits practically possible. I am quite aware that this sounds rather a fancy theory. But it is not, It has been proved that it can practically be solved. To be sure a building can- not be erected on the basis of mere theoretical knowledge alone anymore than town-planning can be based on what has been learned about patterns of behaviour and use. However, a general grasp of problems can ob- viate false conclusions and can con- tribute to a correct idea of the total environment of a city.
THE COTTAGE FEELING
This for the architect and the planner means among other things to go right back to the family to solve their problems not according to gen- eral and just therefore wrong norms, but according to individual needs. He should try to give the tenant back a little of that enchantment the cottage owner ог even a squatter-resident feels when he is planning his own dwelling. He has to get people in- terested in his intentions and himself interest in people, for the mutual benefit of it.
Should someone contend that all this is nothing but utopian schemes, it should be realised that the reality of our time once was the utopian scheme of our forefathers, and our utopian schemes will once provide the realistic background for genera- tions to come.
Whoever moulds these future en- viroments has to form a conception of this environment. This concep- tion, a product of creative imagina- tion, taken as an ideal for planning of the environment is feasable only if it is in accord with reality of the nature of things. Planning and archi- tecture is successful only if it is in line with such an ideal and if it emerges from the solution of concrete problems.
The dilemma is that we neither seem to possess such an ideal nor do we know enough about the concrete problems confronting us.
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