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Books 257 London.’ Of William Burges, he says he was ‘the son of a lighthouse keeper’who built ‘cavernsofcarvingand colour’. The entrance hall to the Daily Express offices sports ‘rippling confections of metal and luminous glass’. The Hoover factory displays ‘whizzing window curves . . .’ and so on. The author is weakest when he accepts what are probably the pronouncements of others. For example, he states that in the Decorated period of architecture ‘designers of churches were becomingmore and more interestedin structure. ...’.On the page opposite to where this assertion occurs isa full-page photograph of Wells Cathedral Chapter House with its multi-ribbed vault ‘exploding’from acentral column. It isa classiccaseof structural redundancy. The Decorated style represents a distinct move away from an interest in structure to a preoccupation with complexity; a process that culminated in the baroque splendours of the vault of Henry VIl’s Chapel at Westminster Abbey. Inevitably, there will be points of disagreement on technical matters, but thisshould not be allowedto eclipsethe fact that this is a book that communicates passion on every page. Few will read it without being infected in some measure by Sir John’s enthusiasm for English architecture. This enthusiasm must have been shared by the publishers, who have done a splendid job of presentation at a price that is unbelievably low. LeCorbusierandtheTragicViewof Architecture. CharlesJencks. Harvard Univ. Press,Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1973. 198 pp.. illus. f7.70. Reviewed by Rod Hackney* There are so many good books available illustrating Le Corbusier’s works that one’s first reaction to seeing yet another may be that it must be superfluous. Jencks, however, makes a major departure in his approach. He concentrates on Le Corbusier as a man designing for his fellow human beings. Less than one-third of the book refersto the aestheticsof the buildings designed. More importantly, the book poses many fundamental questions, especially by analyzing the full implications of Le Corbusier’s work. Many lessgifted followerstook up his ideas, seeingthem as an answerto slumclearance. But, now in Britain, for example, many local authorities are being faced with huge maintenance and repair bills to rectify design and structural faults that have resulted from the methods used in the 1960sfor medium- and high-rise building. Many of these buildings were direct copies of Le Corbusier’s ideas but they were copied without fully understanding them. Urged on by the politicians who wanted many new housing units to attract voters, architects adopted the idea of high-density housing without thought of the people for whom they were designing.Thus, architects have upset the pinnacle on whichthis prestigious architect stood. Now the architectural profession has beenobliged to take the fullblame for these blunders, despite the involvement of the politicians. Whilst it would be unfair to trace all British architectural problems of the 1970s to Le Corbusier, how different things might have been today if the safer Arts and Crafts Movement and its simpler ideology had been followed. It was Le Corbusier who offered the alternatives of monumental architecture that relies so heavily on the non-traditional technology made available by the manufacturing industries and the building trades. LeCorbusier’sfailingwashis remoteness from the society that he designed for. Jencks writes that Le Corbusier’s preoccupations, asexpressedin his work, were‘clarity,precision, implacable honesty, severity, economic competition which produces the perfected machine and the tragic view of the human struggling in a hostile universe. It is these meanings which Le Corbusier later introduced into the Modern Movement and which can be found in his own building-ither the reason for their greatness, or the reason for their failure’ (pp. 35, 36). Thebook isessential reading for architects who aspire towards introducing revolutionary concepts, in order for them to become aware of the danger that the concepts may be misinterpreted or badly carried out in practice. ‘214 Black Rd., Macclesfield,Cheshire SKI1 7JY, England. Notes on the Synthesisof Form. 6th ed. Christopher Alexander. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971. 216 pp., illus. $2.25. Reviewed by Bruno Vayssi&re** In his book architect Christopher 4lexander endeavors to outline a logical quest for form not only for architecture but also for fine art and design. He proposes the use of mathematical notions...

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