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Books 167 texts. stimulate imaginative artists to employ the results in their work. The principles of lasers and what can be done with them in connection with optical systems (e.g. holography) are clearly presented with good illustrations. There is a very important chapter on the dangers of working with lasers and there are references for further reading. Lasers (particularly of the helium-neon type) have become relatively inexpensive in the last few years. Laser Kits may be obtained from Edmund Scientific Co., Barrington, NJ 08007, U S A . With a helium-neon laser of approximately 3 milliwatts and the book, one can try ideas for kinetic and audio-kinetic works, which can then be made on a larger scale. History of Architecture and Design 1890-1939: Introduction. Tim Benton and Geoffrey Baker. The Open University Press, Milton Keynes, England, 1975. Illus. Paper, 22.25. History of Architecture and Design 1890-1939: Art Nouveau 1890-1902. Tim Benton and Sandra Millikin. The Open University Press, Milton Keynes, England, 1975. 64 pp., illus. Paper, f2.75. Reviewed by Peter Lloyd Jones* These two books come as parts of a complete educational ‘package’-text-books, film strips (and readers), television and radio broadcasts as well as tutorial contact on an individual or group basis to students of the Open University . This is Britain’s ‘free’ university, where students (often without the usual academic prerequisites) can undertake degree courses on the basis of a mixture of correspondence, in the extended technological senseindicated above, and conventional teaching in local study centres. They are written in a style that addresses itself to the needs of such students and are full of injunctions in bold type- ‘Look at the plan of this house and the illustrations of the exterior and hall. What does the plan remind you of?’, etc. No doubt such commands give them something of the air of an old time catechism for the casual reader. But that said, they are, in every way, superb introductions to their subjects. Lucid, modest and without any trace of the casual and patronising assumptions so often found in ‘popular’ books, they cover chronological material, but also provide the reader with basic technical and critical tools for the comprehension and appreciation of architecture and design. In fact nothing is taken for granted. There is a simple, but effective,guide to reading plans with a pull-out check sheet. Casestudies of two public buildings of similar functionthe Opera House of Garnier (Paris) and, in our own time, of Utzon (Sydney) serve to point up the whole range of issues: public, private, technical, conceptual, economic and cultural that intersect in a definitive built form. For an inside look at the intentions of architects, there is a case study of the author’s own house that he built in 1967. Here is the secret of these outstanding text books. They are histories written by practioners. Their simplicity is the matter-of-fact know-how of someone who is in the business. (In fact, it is a team job led by Tim Benton). Themes from product design are interwoven with those from architecture (as befits a period that aspired at a Gesunitkrmstwerk in 3-dimensional form). ‘Form’ and ‘function’ are terms that are made to seem less slippery in the context of a disarming analysis of the plastic slideviewer that comes with the package. In the second book these ideas are extended to bring in ‘ornament’ and ‘decoration’, using some very odd (and delightful) kettles and tea pots by Christopher Dresser, and, in general, the treatment of stylistic invariants in the Art Nouveau period across different types of artefacts-house-plan, chair, flat-pattern decoration-is neatly done. There is a high standard of specially prepared drawings. I have not seen the later books, so I do not know quite what this is leading to. Onward and upward to the International style and the modern architectural ‘isms’? *22 Bradbourne St., London SW6 3TE, England. The Theatre of Josef Svoboda. Vladimir Berezkin. Izdatelstvo Izobrazitelnoje Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1974. 200 pp., illus. Reviewed by Miroslav KouiilS This excellently illustrated monograph by the Soviet historian of scenography Berezkin of the Moscow Institute of the Theory and...

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