STUDENT EXHIBITION
1962
PATRICK JONES
When architecture becomes a process of regurgitating worn ideas and lacks both enthusiasm and direction; when the designer's frantic desire for security becomes manifest in every new building, a student is forced to question his attitude and approach to architecture and to reassess his position in relation to the present and the immediate past — in this way he participates more actively in his own environment. In 1962 a group of architectural students of the University of the Witwatersrand felt it imperative to state their point of view towards architecture today. This led to an exhibition in September, which was designed to replace ideas rather than to criticise destructively. The task, once embarked upon, became an enormous project, as it was found that it is easier to criticise than to recreate. All the principles which the students held synonymous with architecture would have to be embodied in their statement.
The research began with the study of buildings in and around Johannesburg by a small group of students. They became increasingly aware of the potentialities of the material at hand. Simultaneously came the realization of the amount of work involved if the material was to be presented adequately.
Seminars were held to discuss the implications of the exhibition. Gradually, suggestions and contributions were accumulated from students acting either as individuals or as small groups, working in conjunction with one another. The entire Reef and Johannesburg areas were thoroughly investigated and all significant buildings were examined in detail and photographed.
At this stage, buildings with a very definite regional quality could be discerned; for example, power houses, mining and industrial structures, which showed a direct translation of their specific needs dictating their forms. The tough quality inherent in buildings like power houses, complemented their stark mine dump environment. The work, which reflected the movement of the 'thirties, was also studied to assess how it had withstood the demands of man, climatic conditions and a growing city. Deniston [sic Denstone] Court, a block of flats in the city centre, showed many of the qualities which had become significant to the students during their examination of other buildings. It had weathered man and his impositions with dignity. Soffits of balconies and window frames had been painted different colours by successive tenants; washing hung from the balconies and the natural corrosion of the elements bore evidence of the building's ability to cope with its human occupants. Backs of buildings became more important than their fronts. This was a significant factor in the subsequent research, as it gave evidence of the designer's self-concious desire to create beauty on a facade.
The backs, which were never intended to be seen, lacked this inhibiting limitation. Here an expression of the whole mechanism of the building became apparent. Hundreds of photographs were collected, of which only pertinent examples were selected for display. From these it was decided that the exhibition should present visual images in conjunction with a manifesto clearly stating the students' aims, instead of a lengthy explanation of each photograph. The observer was left to draw his own conclusions. The exhibition was more a posing of a question than a formulating of a new vernacular. The exhibition was presented in the foyer of the John Moffat Building at the University of the Witwatersrand. Thirteen tons of 1½" (38mm) diameter aluminium and steel scaffold piping grew out of the oval stairwell. The pipes were joined with standard pink coupling units, forming a continuity of spaces in the foyer, which then spilled out of the large glass windows on the east facade into the reflecting pool outside. The photographs and standard corrugated iron sheets, some of which were faced with copies of the manifesto, were placed in spaces formed by the scaffolding, presenting a total image derived from the spontaneous character of the subject matter.
For the students involved the exhibition entailed valuable research which bore evidence of clarity of thought, imagination and endeavour, manifested in the buildings. This served to clarify views and illustrated an approach to building both representative of its particular environment and the solution to its problems.
COMMENTS
"In the buildings presented in this exhibition we find evidence of a way of building that has not lost contact with the basic facts and mysteries of daily life".
Tough, direct buildings, in brutal landscapes: where do we go from here?
Cities and townships beg for quiet, for places of escape, for gentle homes and protected gardens. To achieve them needs a more submissive courage than was required in those frontier days. A more boring sort of social engagement, and a special sort of stamina for dealing with slow changing things — for cities are difficult to change once they are already grown. In a sort of way, to get back to that directness again, one has to reach another organisational plateau, on which the complexity of cities is normal to the processes of architectural form-thought. Not even Swedes can think like this yet.
Your next exhibition must be of things which actually seem to work in the present situation.
I don't need jolting, I need help.
Peter Smithson.
* * * *
Thanks for all the material and subsequent cable. I read the brown paper manifesto and had my fill of the involuntary poetry of the buildings on the photographs.
My question is: does the manifesto link up directly with these photographs? Where the manifesto refers to "the buildings presented in this exhibition we find the evidence of a way of building that has not lost contact... etc etc", are those on the photographs the ones you mean? I'm not clear on that point. It is of course rather difficult for me to discuss your Witwatersrand area study. I can, however, send you a few rather short and axiomatic pieces I have written recently.
Are there not matters that must be tackled which precede planning and architecture? I think so.
My statements: "If society has no form how can we build its counter-form?" and: "When we say city we should imply those that live and not just abstract population," imply that we work for all men or no man. Since we — you, all of us — unhappily do not work for all men (in spirit) we inevitably work for no man. As long as we keep doing that, as long as we keep working for no man rather than all men there is no real sound reason why "we should decline to accept architecture as the complacent perpetuation of standards and concepts that are no longer valid etc" (see manifesto you sent to me). Twelve years ago I wrote roughly the same thing: Today the architect is the ally of all men or no man — or he is not an architect at all.
The city is the home of a reasonably integrated lot or it is not a city — not a living city at least. Our choice was made when we chose to become architects!!!!! that's it, that's the truth. Space is the appreciation of it. It is never space for one and solid for another. Doors never evilly select — they gather.
A. van Eyck.
|
