1964
PROBLEMS IN PLANNING
193
THE
By H. G. R. Hollmann
Senior Lecturer in Architecture, University of Hong Kong.
confusing multitude of technical and material possibili- ties in the construction of individual houses and of whole towns is in startling contrast to the paucity of knowledge as to how to proceed in the use and the design of houses and communities.
We nowadays know hardly any- thing at all about how a modern tenement house or a city is used and how it has to be organized for human habitation. Our thinking has concen- trated
isolated problems. on
We have lost sight of the whole. No wonder that we find ourselves en- a snarl of all possible tangled in a technicalities which at first seem to spell freedom but in reality subject us to nerve-racking compulsion
NO CHOICE
A similar compulsion is exerted by our cities and residential areas. The tenant in a tenement house cannot freely choose his neighbours; even a neighbourhood-community is a com- munity by the grace of the planner only.
even
mass an
а
However, we believe intuitively that
in the amorphous authentic freedom is possible, freedom that does not lead to isola- tion. This freedom is not rendered possible with this or that architec- tural style; movement, contacts and separations cannot be regimented according to plan. At the same time there is no need to sacrifice comfort and to return "to nature.
་་
Perhaps at the present time we ought to realise above all what this entanglement in those many isolat- ed details involves, how freedom in a mass-society is possible in a wholly concrete sense, what pattern of be- haviour is by nature necessary to it, how cities, high buildings, streets, etc. are actually used by people. The individual seems no longer to be able to grasp what is happening. Instead experience is to be acquired and digested methodically and systema- tically.
In lack of experience we tend to look for information and advice in all possible directions. In doing so we find ourselves very soon contem- plating one essential momentum in civil-social planning and design, namely the attempt by all possible
experts psychologists
to
from engineers
to "guide" planners
and architects in their work.
i..
H. G. R. Hollmann
With due regard to their contribu- tions and to the serious efforts of these scientist one cannot but react against the naivete of such an ap- proach, which unfortunately seems to characterise the entire field of modern science, and which in this particular case tries to make believe, that sociological problems as e.g. town planning can be assailed by so- called scientific methods at all i.e. methods which can give distinct de- finitions to its conceptions and which either tries to find or simply believes in "confirmities to law" in the field in human relations, con- formities of the same type as are evident in dead materials. That means a method which is aiming at an absolute conviction about things which are principally and practically completely unmeasurable and about relations which deprive themselves completely of so-called basic axioms in scientific meaning. The conformi- ties to law we have to deal with if there is something like that are of quite different dimensions
THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER--VÕLUME 19, NUMBER 3
and on a quite different level than those of scientific-physical happenings.
In order to clarify what I am aim- ing at I would like to mention just one of the terms we should deal with very carefully. It is the feeling of "well-being. This boils down to the simple question of whether any in- dividual feels well with regard to his own person, to other individuals and to his environment.
In analysing the conditions for such a desired feeling of well-being one is immediately confronted by a puzzling phenomemon: Some in- dividuals
obviously feel extremely
well in an environment which from social, hygienic, aesthetic and other aspects has to be denoted as completely unsatisfactory, whereas others do not feel well in surround- ings thought to be perfect in every possible respect. Why is that so? Is there really anyone who believes or
applying scientific results can hope for a clarification of the deep- er and essential causes for well-being by a method which is not directly aimed at the individual, i.e. at his development, up to
up to what he is at the moment and at his conscious or unconscious efforts to become some- thing different ог eventually even something better than he is at the present?
NO ‘AVERAGE'
One may answer, that our mo- dern sociology taking into ac- count personal desires, differences and efforts can only pay atten- tion to the masses and to the aver- age. And of course, this is some- thing which is not out of reach for the modern and refined working methods of sociology. It would be possible to some extent to give a numerical account of the occurence of different valuations which even- tually could define so diffuse and dif- ficult a conception as that of well- being. However, one must say that a statistical average-figure is nothing else but a pure abstraction which has no relevance to concrete reality. And in this very fact we have one of the reasons that social and other related sciences as they present themselves to-day are very likely to play prac tical jokes with all those who have to do with planning.
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