Volume 5, No. 35, 1946. issue it reported a death (see fea­ old inside-upside format. The same mington, C/o Oakley and Parkes, 474 SMUDGES Is a free monthly news­ ture). It wasn’t so healthy itself. old stalwart advertisers, God Bless Bourke Street, Melbourne, 0.1. fold about architecture. It appeared Next month it gave a hollow cough ’em. The same old typographical and shrank back to its original size. errors. The same old jokes. Even This month, nearly seven years of first in May, 1939. It was half this age, SMUDGES can sit up and take size, and it carried two shattering By this time, its office was a tent. the same old financial worries. And It was sinking rapidly we hope it is back home for keeps. medicine. If you have any, in the criticisms of new city buildings. form of articles or criticisms, may we Unfortunately, few could read it be­ In April, '42, SMUDGES raised itself If you want to see it every month like you used to, the same old con­ have it? Literary pills are SMUDGES cause of a slight optical miscalcula­ on an elbow, muttered something urgent need. Please address to: tion. It was printed in yellow on blue. that sounded like “One World,” then ditions apply: if you’re not a full SMUDGES started to grow. Ever in­ sank exhausted. member of V.A.S.S. (in which case SMUDGES, C/o R.V.I.A., 53-55 Collins creasing in size, colour, enthusiasm you will get SMUDGES automati­ Place, C.1. (You may mark your After exactly four years’ absence, cally), you can become an Associate envelopes with a red cross if you and indiscretion, it reached its 32nd SMUDGES is here again. The Blot Member by mailing 5/- to our Dis­ really want to, but frankly, we don’t issue in February, 1942. With that again. The Bouquet again. The same tribution Manager, Stuart G. War- think the joke will stand it). SHU D G F S published monthly by the Architectural Students’ Society of the R.V.I.A., 53-55 Collins Place, Melbourne, C.1. Editor: Neil Clerehan, Assistant Editors: John Campbell, Leslie M. Perrott, Jnr. Distribution: Stuart G. Warmington. APRIL

Wanted, a Plan! Plan Now!” Everybody seemed to be calling like that. A rotten world was dying. Unfair, and moreover inefficient. THE 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 GHOST WALKS 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 One of the founders, ex. to perform work which he knows to be contrary to the ideals of his editor and pall-bearer, Robin craft. He can’t afford to crusade. “Sing ’em muck!” Collins Street Boyd recalls 1942 in guest and the pin-stripes are the things that count. editorial. 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: DEATH IN THE NIGHT the spirit that was calling for a revolt against the divisions and the false values of the past. The early months of 1942 : the darkness was creeping in. Australia was grim and pretty scared. The Japs, were moving surely south­ ON BORROWED TIME ward. They were, we rightly guessed, to move a long way further before they were stopped. In February, SMUDGES reported a The architect is abroad again. The little offices are gathering back death: "... The architectural profession is, for good or for bad, their staffs from the slowing military machine. Sketch plans are gone for good.” Death of the architect. Death of the Little Man decorating the boards. But the architects know that this revival is of Architecture : the private practitioner : the artist in business perilous. All this activity is strained, like the frantic ad lib gestur­ clothing. SMUDGES wrote a simple little epitaph: “ . . . [He] died ing of amateur actors when the curtain refuses to drop at the because in peace he could not produce good architecture; in war he appointed time. Half the buildings that are being sketched will could not provide worthy national service.” never be built from the restricted material market. The public, fed Years later, a husky practitioner striding down Collins Street in for years on fabulous tales of préfabrication, is looking about in broad daylight might well have been tempted to quote Mark Twain bewildered impatience as all mass-housing work is surely drawn in similar circumstances. But if the report of his death was some­ into the sphere of the one big private corporation. Only the big what exaggerated, SMUDGES was not alone in swallowing the men and the Government Departments are healthy. rumour. Pencil Points magazine (U.S.A.) quoted in full. The story The fight is on. If the little private man can hold his own now, he crept into several other overseas magazines. “This is by no means is safe. But this borrowed time may be his last opportunity. How an impossible forecast of the situation a few years hence in this will he fight? As in the past, with his swords and arrows: his country,” warned Pencil Points. In U.S.A., as in Australia, offices horizontal glazing bars and Tudor arches? Or will be come out with were closing, Government bureaus and big corporate organisations the real stuff: the architecture which he knows is right but which were swelling. And the young men were being drawn into the still frightens him: with individual creative work that might even accelerating cogs of the military machine. But more significant be called art? For in the long run this is the simple crux of the than the losses in accountable personnel was the attitude in the battle. This is the only way he can fight the steady growth of the minds of architects themselves. In those days they weren’t very mammoth organisation. This is his only justification. The little comfortable. Something seemed to be dying.. It was more than the men of architecture can supply the quality that no big organisation, practitioner of architecture. It was the whole way of life of which bogged down with routine and too many cooks, can mimic. The little he was a tiny, but well-loved, part. architect can still win. But no tricks and no fakes and no slick “The New Era . . . After the War . . . The Birth of a New World . ; .” dodges will help. remember those phrases? Everyone used to talk like that. “Plan! Nothing short of good architecture will save him now. in no other case would it have the artistic Australian Architects Should validity required by the subject 2 WAR-STORED Back U S. Proposal for An And what other fair method of choosing such a leader is there other than by competition? SCHOLARSHIPS BACK Architectural Competition for SMUDGES urges the Australian delegates to the UNO Assembly currently meeting in New 1 - Vass Atelier York, to vote for an international competition Subject Nnmber One, set by K, Murray For­ to select the architect for the headquarters. ster (A)—a design is required for a small SMUDGES urges its architect readers to write country railway station, on a single, through in their opinions. A solid professional backing line. To the Myer Emporium is necessary. SMUDGES undertakes to collect Ltd., for “Fall - Fan­ pertinent statements, and will cable Austra­ Accommodation required: Station master’s tasy’’ window display. UNO general office, section for parcel receipt and lia’s UNO delegates of Melbourne’s response. despatch, lock-up store for perishable goods, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, has small waiting room, conveniences.. Platform Welcome of Peace. proposed that an international competition be covered in front of building. called for the design of the headquarters of the United Nations Organisation. Drawings required: Perspective view rendered Last month, SMUDGES received a letter from Roy Grounds Talks in colour. Plan at 1-8th scale indicated. Progressive Architecture (U.S.A.), which Sheet: Half Imperial. Next VAAS Meet at the Kelvin Hall, 53-55 magazine is attempting to enlist the support Entries close 12 noon, Friday, May 3, with of progressive architects in all countries for Collins Place, C.1., on Wednesday, April 24, at 8 p.m.—a general meeting of VAAS. Hon. Sec. VAAS, C/o R.V.I.A., 53-55 Collins such a competition. Place, Melbourne, C.1. In spite of the tremendous complications in­ Guest-speaker for the night is Farmer- BLOT OF THE MONTH volved, and no matter what one may think Architect Roy Grounds. Mr. Grounds will 2 — War Memorial of the demerits of competitions for smaller speak on etc., etc. work, it is hard to conceive of a better Due to late appearance of this issue, notice Last month the Board of Architectural Edu­ the new “Peace" stamp issue. method of selecting the architect for this is unfortunately short; but hell! it isn't cation announced resumption of the R.V.I.A. extraordinary case. THAT short. War Memorial Scholarship, invited applica­ tions. One of the less important failures of the League of Nations was architectural. UNO The scholarship, which was established cannot afford to repeat this failure any more through donations made by members of the than any other of the League’s failures. UNO’s Institute for the purpose of a memorial to architectural environment must have dignity Another Ghost members and students who served in the without pomposity, and be inspiring without 1914-1918 war, is to the value of approximately being theatrical. It must be the giant of Through the city’s somnolent streets last E50 per annum to be devoted to the pay­ International architecture. month, another ghost walked. Dismembered ment of fees at the University and of travel­ But architecture is not like money or oil. and crated, the Myer (Ward) Prefab. House ling expenses for the purpose of developing Such a plan dannot be thrashed out by an trundled off to another uneasy, unknown grave. the architectural education of persons to international committee. One mind alone This prototype was received coldly by Mel­ whom the award is made. The conditions must thrash this thing out. One great mind bourne’s architects last year, but if coming state that no person shall receive any financial among the architects of all nations. events are casting accurate shadows before assistance from the scholarship unless he or Dozens of minds will be needed for the de­ them, even its most caustic critics may well she is a student of architecture at the Uni­ tails, but the conception must be personal— regret its passing. versity. Disturbing the Peace.

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Library Digitised Collections

Author/s: Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. Students' Society.

Title: Smudges. vol. 5, no. 35 (April, 1946)

Date: 1946

Persistent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11343/214628