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Volume 5, No. 35, 1946.

SMUDGES Is a free monthly news

fold about architecture. It appeared first in May, 1939. It was half this size, and it carried two shattering criticisms of new city buildings.

Unfortunately, few could read it be

cause of a slight optical miscalcula

tion. It was printed in yellow on blue.

SMUDGES started to grow. Ever in

creasing in size, colour, enthusiasm and indiscretion, it reached its 32nd issue in February, 1942. With that

issue it reported a death (see fea

ture). It wasn’t so healthy itself.

Next month it gave a hollow cough and shrank back to its original size.

By this time, its office was a tent.

It was sinking rapidly

In April, '42, SMUDGES raised itself on an elbow, muttered something that sounded like “One World,” then sank exhausted.

After exactly four years’ absence, SMUDGES is here again. The Blot again. The Bouquet again. The same

old inside-upside format. The same old stalwart advertisers, God Bless

’em. The same old typographical errors. The same old jokes. Even the same old financial worries. And we hope it is back home for keeps.

If you want to see it every month like you used to, the same old con

ditions apply: if you’re not a full member of V.A.S.S. (in which case you will get SMUDGES automati

cally), you can become an Associate Member by mailing 5/- to our Dis

tribution Manager, Stuart G. War-

D G

Collins Place, Melbourne, C.1.

mington, C/o Oakley and Parkes, 474 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 0.1.

This month, nearly seven years of age, SMUDGES can sit up and take medicine. If you have any, in the

form of articles or criticisms, may we have it? Literary pills are SMUDGES urgent need. Please address to:

SMUDGES, C/o R.V.I.A., 53-55 Collins Place, C.1. (You may mark your envelopes with a red cross if you really want to, but frankly, we don’t think the joke will stand it).

F S

APRIL

SHU

published monthly by the Architectural Students’ Society of the R.V.I.A., 53-55 Editor: Neil Clerehan,

Assistant Editors: John Campbell, Leslie M. Perrott, Jnr.

Distribution: Stuart G. Warmington.

THE

GHOST WALKS

DEATH IN THE NIGHT

The early months of 1942 : the darkness was creeping in. Australia was grim and pretty scared. The Japs, were moving surely south

ward. They were, we rightly guessed, to move a long way further before they were stopped. In February, SMUDGES reported a death: "... The architectural profession is, for good or for bad, gone for good.” Death of the architect. Death of the Little Man of Architecture : the private practitioner : the artist in business clothing. SMUDGES wrote a simple little epitaph: “ . . . [He] died because in peace he could not produce good architecture; in war he could not provide worthy national service.”

Years later, a husky practitioner striding down Collins Street in broad daylight might well have been tempted to quote Mark Twain in similar circumstances. But if the report of his death was some

what exaggerated, SMUDGES was not alone in swallowing the rumour. Pencil Points magazine (U.S.A.) quoted in full. The story crept into several other overseas magazines. “This is by no means an impossible forecast of the situation a few years hence in this country,” warned Pencil Points. In U.S.A., as in Australia, offices were closing, Government bureaus and big corporate organisations were swelling. And the young men were being drawn into the accelerating cogs of the military machine. But more significant than the losses in accountable personnel was the attitude in the minds of architects themselves. In those days they weren’t very comfortable. Something seemed to be dying.. It was more than the practitioner of architecture. It was the whole way of life of which he was a tiny, but well-loved, part.

“The New Era . . . After the War . . . The Birth of a New World . ; .”

remember those phrases? Everyone used to talk like that. “Plan!

One of the founders, ex.

editor and pall-bearer, Robin Boyd recalls 1942 in guest editorial.

Wanted, a Plan! Plan Now!” Everybody seemed to be calling like that. A rotten world was dying. Unfair, and moreover inefficient.

Most people knew that something had to be done about it. Some*

hoped that even the horror of the war might yet not be a total waste. Somehow, some sort of plan for world co-operation and for individual security might be stirred to the top. The great swing to the Left had begun.

LABOUR WINS AS LABOUR WINS

Italy fell. Labour won at Canberra. Germany fell. Labour won in Britain. Japan fell. Labour won in Victoria. And so here we are! Peace and Plans. And the architect too! But what kind of a peace: with violence, repressions, super-strikes, and the mounting pressure of The Bomb? With war hardly more remote than in 1939?

And what kind of plans: with famine, poverty, party-political squabbling, hit and run socialisation? With depression hardly more remote than in 1920 ? It is the same kind of peace and the same sort of plans we knew so well before it all began. The peace of power; the plans of expedience. And the architect who fits into such a picture is the one we knew so well: the very essence of all that Private Enterprise means: the self-reliant professional man, cultured, responsible. But forced by the economics of his position to perform work which he knows to be contrary to the ideals of his craft. He can’t afford to crusade. “Sing ’em muck!” Collins Street and the pin-stripes are the things that count.

The profession did not.die at the outbreak of war; but something more important may be in danger of death at the return of peace:

the spirit that was calling for a revolt against the divisions and the false values of the past.

ON BORROWED TIME

The architect is abroad again. The little offices are gathering back their staffs from the slowing military machine. Sketch plans are decorating the boards. But the architects know that this revival is perilous. All this activity is strained, like the frantic ad lib gestur

ing of amateur actors when the curtain refuses to drop at the appointed time. Half the buildings that are being sketched will never be built from the restricted material market. The public, fed for years on fabulous tales of préfabrication, is looking about in bewildered impatience as all mass-housing work is surely drawn into the sphere of the one big private corporation. Only the big men and the Government Departments are healthy.

The fight is on. If the little private man can hold his own now, he is safe. But this borrowed time may be his last opportunity. How will he fight? As in the past, with his swords and arrows: his horizontal glazing bars and Tudor arches? Or will be come out with the real stuff: the architecture which he knows is right but which still frightens him: with individual creative work that might even be called art? For in the long run this is the simple crux of the battle. This is the only way he can fight the steady growth of the mammoth organisation. This is his only justification. The little men of architecture can supply the quality that no big organisation, bogged down with routine and too many cooks, can mimic. The little architect can still win. But no tricks and no fakes and no slick dodges will help.

Nothing short of good architecture will save him now.

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Australian Architects Should Back U S. Proposal for An Architectural Competition for

UNO

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, has proposed that an international competition be called for the design of the headquarters of the United Nations Organisation.

Last month, SMUDGES received a letter from Progressive Architecture (U.S.A.), which magazine is attempting to enlist the support of progressive architects in all countries for such a competition.

In spite of the tremendous complications in

volved, and no matter what one may think of the demerits of competitions for smaller work, it is hard to conceive of a better method of selecting the architect for this extraordinary case.

One of the less important failures of the League of Nations was architectural. UNO cannot afford to repeat this failure any more than any other of the League’s failures. UNO’s architectural environment must have dignity without pomposity, and be inspiring without being theatrical. It must be the giant of International architecture.

But architecture is not like money or oil.

Such a plan dannot be thrashed out by an international committee. One mind alone must thrash this thing out. One great mind among the architects of all nations.

Dozens of minds will be needed for the de

tails, but the conception must be personal—

in no other case would it have the artistic validity required by the subject

And what other fair method of choosing such a leader is there other than by competition?

SMUDGES urges the Australian delegates to the UNO Assembly currently meeting in New York, to vote for an international competition to select the architect for the headquarters.

SMUDGES urges its architect readers to write in their opinions. A solid professional backing is necessary. SMUDGES undertakes to collect pertinent statements, and will cable Austra

lia’s UNO delegates of Melbourne’s response.

Roy Grounds Talks

Next VAAS Meet at the Kelvin Hall, 53-55 Collins Place, C.1., on Wednesday, April 24, at 8 p.m.—a general meeting of VAAS.

Guest-speaker for the night is Farmer- Architect Roy Grounds. Mr. Grounds will speak on etc., etc.

Due to late appearance of this issue, notice is unfortunately short; but hell! it isn't THAT short.

Another Ghost

Through the city’s somnolent streets last month, another ghost walked. Dismembered and crated, the Myer (Ward) Prefab. House trundled off to another uneasy, unknown grave.

This prototype was received coldly by Mel

bourne’s architects last year, but if coming events are casting accurate shadows before them, even its most caustic critics may well regret its passing.

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2 WAR-STORED

SCHOLARSHIPS BACK 1 - Vass Atelier

Subject Nnmber One, set by K, Murray For

ster (A)—a design is required for a small country railway station, on a single, through line.

Accommodation required: Station master’s general office, section for parcel receipt and despatch, lock-up store for perishable goods, small waiting room, conveniences.. Platform covered in front of building.

Drawings required: Perspective view rendered in colour. Plan at 1-8th scale indicated.

Sheet: Half Imperial.

Entries close 12 noon, Friday, May 3, with Hon. Sec. VAAS, C/o R.V.I.A., 53-55 Collins Place, Melbourne, C.1.

2 — War Memorial

Last month the Board of Architectural Edu

cation announced resumption of the R.V.I.A.

War Memorial Scholarship, invited applica

tions.

The scholarship, which was established through donations made by members of the Institute for the purpose of a memorial to members and students who served in the 1914-1918 war, is to the value of approximately E50 per annum to be devoted to the pay

ment of fees at the University and of travel

ling expenses for the purpose of developing the architectural education of persons to whom the award is made. The conditions state that no person shall receive any financial assistance from the scholarship unless he or she is a student of architecture at the Uni

versity.

To the Myer Emporium Ltd., for “Fall - Fan

tasy’’ window display.

Welcome of Peace.

BLOT OF THE MONTH

the new “Peace" stamp issue.

Disturbing the Peace.

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