The Australian Ugliness

by Robin Boyd

  The Australian ugliness does need an injection of emotion and poetry, but even if Australia could learn to turn out Frank Lloyd Wrights like she now turns out tennis players and champion swimmers, still there would not be enough architects to give individual attention to all the buildings required. Wright himself offered as a solution to the world’s architectural problems nothing more than the proposition that all designers of worldly goods eventually should cultivate the strength and type of imagination which he himself practised for sixty years. But since few enough of his own disciples at Taliesin were able to reach his creative level, this engaging prospect cannot be anticipated with any confidence. ‘A building without poetry has no right to exist,’ Wright told his Taliesin Fellowship on his second last birthday, in the Spring of 1957: ‘it should never be built.’ But an evening or two earlier when he was asked if he believed that there would ever be enough artists to design all the buildings the world required, he shook his head slowly and answered, ‘No.’

  A world where everyone lives, works and plays in structures of high poetry created by brilliant self-portraitists is as unlikely as a world where everyone lives in pure bubbles of technology, and in some respects both prospects are almost as forbidding as the present disjointed mess produced by men who avoid commitments to either side.

  The solution, then, is to recognize that there is an appropriate time and place for both the technology of space-enclosure and the architecture of expression, and to work to eliminate the neuter type: neither scientific nor artistic. There is no fundamental conflict between the two logical extremes, between, say, Sydney’s Opera House and her Unilever House, for they are not comparable. The poetic expression and the glass box are no more commensurable than the horse and the motorcar. And in the years ahead, as the science of space-enclosure grows more involved, exact and impersonal, the two will inevitably grow further apart—except that science and art, like the opposite ends of a straight line, might meet in an inverted infinite future. On some distant day the scientific builder might arrive at a point he recognizes as perfection, and might realize that his old colleague of the early twentieth century, the artist-architect, might have arrived at the same point from the other side if he had lived long enough. Scientist and artist could meet in a time of perfection, one guilelessly sheltering men whose lives and minds have discovered order and the other intuitively portraying those lives and minds. But we may be fairly certain that the buildings of such an era would bear no more resemblance to any buildings we know now than a perfectly ordered era would bear to our competitive, Featurist society.

  And there is the basic objection to Featurism: a moral objection. No matter how successful it may be in pleasing the passing eye, no matter if it pleases to the extent of being judged beautiful, the entirely superficial, frivolous appeal of a Featurist object can never assist human awareness, wisdom and understanding. It is for this reason alone as degrading to human nature as it is to art.

  To the average family, unimpressed by architectural theory but eager to get the best house possible, the acceptance of a clear division between creative and machined shelter should provide not less but more satisfaction from the experience of building. Those who derive pleasure from architecture and have the means to indulge their taste would, as always, consult the artist-architect of their choice. He, as always, would create in form and space a sort of personal portrait of the occupants and himself. Those who have no wish or patience to patronize the art of architecture would turn to the machined shelter, would find in it much more space-for-money, and might find even more opportunity for personal expression in arranging and appointing it than they can find now in the conventional housing market.

  Indeed, the sooner that the break between the space-enclosing technologist and the creative building-artist is recognized, the better for all concerned. Then the pretence of artistry might be dropped by the great mass of buildings which now only pretend by habit, because it seems the thing to do. Then architecture would not present an even gradation from the sublime to the ridiculous; instead the streets of a cultivated community would present only two types of face: good particular and good universal. When architecture accepts the division a clear line will be drawn below the creative artist and those without his passion will be no more inclined to imitate him than they would ape a conductor’s arm movements. Then the art of architecture will be left to those with capacity in the creative medium of shelter while the science and technology of space-enclosure will develop faster free of sentimental strings.

  But the problem of Featurism is not, we know, confined to the mother art. It involves all her visual offspring, through engineering, to industrial design and craft work of every kind. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, with its entirely redundant pylons built as features to camouflage the honest steel, may be the crowning achievement of Australian Featurism, but the pylons differ only in scale, not in principle, from most things on three million Australian mantelpieces.

  Perhaps two pictures in every hundred which hang in Australian homes and waiting-rooms and the foyers of business offices are not there for Featurist reasons, are there because they mean something as paintings to the person who hung them. The other ninety-eight, whether original oils or reproduced water-colour, whether traditional or modern, impressionist or abstract, serious or decorative, good or bad, are hung because someone first decided that something was needed there on the blank wall: something to destroy the frightening honesty of the blank wall: a Feature.

  The way out of the Featurist jungle in the broadest field of architecture—the elimination of the in-between building, neither wholly rational nor poetic—may be a gigantic process requiring the re-education of the public eye. But the principle is applied more simply to individual buildings and articles. Indeed non-Featurism is already practised every day, not only by professional designers but by any talented houseproud woman who appreciates that the wholeness of the total effect of her house is a hundred times more valuable than any feature, and who realizes that, if there is anything more destructive to art than a feature, it is two features.

  The non-Featurist housewife with her homogeneous living-room is, however, more intent on creating a delightful home environment than the bargain-hunter who can never resist the draw of the oddments-counter in a furniture store. The tragic irony of Featurism is that it is practised in the name of beauty, on the assumption that all things made by man for use in the workaday world are necessarily ugly when naked, until they are given the extra enlivening life of a few extrinsic eye-catchers. The Featurist is not prepared to consider the simple proposition that no object which is true to its own nature needs cosmetics.

  Throughout the whole artificial backdrop to everyday life, as in architecture, there are two sources of genuine form: hand or heart: process or poetry. The man-made object may follow the mute logic of materials and techniques, or its entire nature may be shaped in an attempt to express some idea beyond the utilitarian. These are the black and white, the negative and positive approaches to genuine design, and each in its appropriate time and place could make a shape for Utopia. But the Featurist will not admit this. He is afraid of the naked, guileless truth of the plain utilitarian product of craft or technology. And he is not prepared to cultivate an appreciation of expressive form. The only visual excitement he knows is recognition of a familiar shape or a symbolic surface treatment of fashion. The Featurist way of design, indecisive and indeterminate, is a grey mixture, not directly from the hand or the heart: never a plain anonymous structure and yet never a message, nothing to say but a cry for attention, never a plain wall, never a strong painting, only a decorative mural.

  The attraction of a Featurist object is sudden, sharp and shallow. It counts on claiming love at first sight, guessing that love never grows gradually towards anything which relies wholly on cosmetics. The really successful Featurist object instantaneously seduces its observer, who then begins gradually to cool, until complete disenchantment is reached usually about twelve months
before the time-payments are completed. Because it is non-intellectual, non-emotional and entirely optical, a Featurist effect cannot be accumulative, inviting deeper study.

  On the other hand, either of the genuine sources of design can provide forms of lasting value. Through the centuries warm feeling has produced boldly expressive art in numerous guises, and cold logic has produced boldly functional objects galore: from primitive tools to Quaker implements to fry-pans and aeroplanes. The hand has made some things satisfying and the heart has made others involving.

  If Australia, or any other prosperous country in the modern world, had any desire to rid itself of the ugly evidence of Featurism, it would turn to both the genuine sources of design. Then the workaday backdrop would gradually be shaped by physical laws and the features would gradually be shaped by ideas. Not all the ideas would appeal to all men, of course, but somehow each feature would be meaningful to the person who featured it and nothing would be governed only by the meaningless, heartless habits of fashion.

  The ideas are the essence of this hypothetical Utopia. Without them the prospect of an unrelieved, impeccable, impersonal background can enthuse few people. The key to release from Featurism is a promise of more, not less, visual interest. The Featurist can be offered the prospect of richer optical treats in the various objects which will always demand or deserve to be in the foreground: the houses of parliament, houses for kings and kingpins, churches, galleries, gift-shops—and within each of these the principal chambers, salons, altars, thrones and sales counters. If each of these things is to justify its assumption of prominence without calling in outside symbols, it needs a formal idea: something that will reconcile all the conflicting material and human requirements and create order at its touch, something that will make one whole thing out of all the necessary parts.

  Plato made what must be the first recorded attack on Featurism when he explained the need in every work of art for unity: the cohesion and interrelation of all elements, as in nature. This theory has stood as an axiom in practically all artistic criticism. If there is no unity there is no work of art; two or three unrelated works of art there may be, but not one. Featurism, of course, works on the contrary principle that one cannot have too many good things, even conflicting things, provided the eyes are kept entertained.

  In every attempt to design a Platonic non-Featurist object there are three stages: the programme of physical requirements and limitations, the formal concept, and the technique. The middle stage is the time for ideas. This is when form is set and character develops as a synthesis extracted from the programme. The idea comes to light as the designer seeks a unifying theme, a motive; or it fails ever to appear. The idea arrives, if at all, suddenly, complete, in the guise of a discipline; a motive, like character in a person, which makes for a certain consistency, reliability and predictability in all behaviour.

  In buildings, which are the most complex and pervasive objects in our lives, character naturally may be more elaborate and subtle than in a chair or a tea-cup, but the principle is the same. In the moment of decision the architect cannot conceive every element as a painter might conceive the guiding form of his canvas. At this stage he may not even decide the form of certain major parts; rather he conceives a formal limitation for the project. Ask any creative architect how long it took him to design his favourite building and he will reply: five minutes, give or take a minute. Maxwell Fry tells how he and the others of the Le Corbusier team designed an Indian city in one conversation. Yamasaki tells how he designed an office block one Saturday morning when he happened to race back to the office for a moment and glanced again at his problem-littered drawing-board. Wright told how he designed an art gallery for Baghdad gazing out the window of his plane on the flight home. Most architects like to tell about the moment of perception on their favourite works: these are the high moments of their lives. The briefer the moment, the simpler and stronger the idea—and the more unified the subsequent building or city is likely to be.

  The three stages of design do not, of course, always appear sharply separated in a finished product, but an analysis of any design and the extraction of the central, motivating idea is always helpful to understanding. The Featurist is inclined to judge appearances on the results of the first and last stages of design and to ignore the essential middle stage. For instance, if he happens to enjoy brightness and warmth at all times he is likely to approve a building which invites streams of sunshine through wide windows. On the other hand, if glare induces headaches he is unlikely to approve any building that looks very glassy, even if he never has to enter it. But the degree of natural illumination is a question which properly belongs in the first stage of design, the programming, when all the desirable qualities for the building are discussed before the designer puts pencil to paper. Again, the popularity of a building generally depends on qualities of the surface treatment, which properly belong in the third stage of design, the technique, and have little or nothing to do with the shapes or overall architectural form. A cosy sort of Featurist may be disturbed by hard, glazed finishes of tiles and metals, while the many who are Flash Gordons at heart are impatient with what seems to be the sentimental attraction of woody, warm, rugged textures. Personal taste, even in something as superficial as colour, often diverts attention from the essential form and makes the difference between approval and antagonism in the attitude to a building.

  For the exercise, consider the work of two of Sydney’s best known architects: Sydney Ancher and Harry Seidler. These men have much in common. For about ten years after the Second World War, before they were joined by members of a new generation, each concentrated on house design and without much help from others separately kept modern architecture alive in Sydney’s suburbs. One or the other won most of the awards given during this period for distinguished work. Each of them had at some time to defend his architecture in court. Each has followed his own chosen line of development with rare concentration and lack of deviation. Each works within the central discipline of modern architecture. Yet within these limits their work could hardly be less similar. If the central discipline may be assumed to be a perfect balance between, on the left, the human emotional requirements in building and, on the right, the rational intellectual theory of building, Ancher draws the line a little to the left and Seidler likes to draw it to the right. If both were to set out to build themselves a house on the same slope of Sydney Harbour, one could anticipate, on previous showings, that Ancher would dig his house into the slope and Seidler would project his forward from the slope on some sort of cantilever. The materials also might be different: easy-going carpentry on the left, formal concrete on the right: but whatever was chosen there would be no distortion of materials for visual effect by either designer, and of course no extraneous ornament.

  Yet most people, surveying the houses of the two men cannot remain neutral. They love one, hate the other. And the reason for this, for the great atmospheric difference between characteristic houses of these two architects, stems from the programming and the techniques. The difference lies mainly in the initial attitudes and extra problems which each architect gratuitously sets himself before he even begins to design. More important than the differences, the houses of the two architects have one element in common; each is based on a strong design idea which permeates and brings coherence throughout the building of each house, in short, is intensely non-Featurist: a whole thing; and two such whole houses can sit beside each other more amicably than any two Featurist houses which are already ragbags of oddments. For this reason an Ancher house and a Seidler house, for all their atmospheric differences, would never be bad neighbours to each other. No matter if the former is disciplined by an idea of external form and the latter by an idea of space and structure. No matter if each idea is not absolutely original, underivative and apt. The important thing here is the fact that the houses always have some idea and are thus united in the higher order of ideas, while Featurist villas without ideas or integrity are always at
war within themselves and with their neighbours. While the Featurist jungle is torn by all manner of strident cries for attention, all things made with an idea and an integrity can sit happily together, however different they look, and can be simultaneously appreciated by us without vacillation of principles. The way to escape from the Featurist mess throughout the whole world of design is not to attempt the impossible task of standardising people’s preferences in the atmospheric quality of the environment, by seeking a common denominator in popular tastes in living habits or materials or techniques, or by trying to find an acceptable style to which everyone is prepared to conform. The way out of the mess is not by way of taste, but by way of cultivating the quality of ideas in design. Any object lacking a strong central motivating idea must be lacking intrinsic interest and coherence, and untrained eyes will look immediately for features to add the visual entertainment. Even trained eyes may hanker after some central feature on which to rest a while. Hence the over-prominent entrance feature on three out of four buildings. But in the presence of a virile, meaningful, characterful motive, even the least experienced eye will be conscious that a strong order prevails, and will realize that its discipline would overrule irrelevant additional features, that they are not necessary and indeed might be objectionable. This realization is the only thing that will break the grip of Featurism on those people who practise it now with the best intentions of creating beauty.