BEHIND THE GREEKS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1862, 23 September 1913, Page 8

BEHIND THE GREEKS.

JERRY BUILDER V. ARCHITECT. Standing room was not available at the rooms .of the Royal Victoria Instituro or Architects, Melbourne, on tho evening of September 2, when the ordinary meeting was held. The attraction was an addross oji architecture by an American architect, Mr. Walter B. Griffin, author of the accepted design for tho Federal capital. Mr. A. Henderson, president of tho institute, occupied tho chair.

Mr. Grilfin made some remarks as to the standards of architecture in tho United States, as compared with England and Australia. Observation had impressed him that in Australia greater attention was given to the facades of buildings than m The Australian architectural training differed from the American in that offico training was required in Australia. Engineering had been the dominant influence in tho American system until recently, arid it had not conduced to architectural development. There had, however, during' the last few years been a general change in the attitude towards education. Tho trouble was that education brought conventions into authority. He would advocate the individualistic instead of the conventional method of training. His idea was an assumption that every child born into the world was a genius, cither a scientist, discovering things for the benefit of tho peopled an'invontor, experimenting with mechanical processes, or an artist, who gave form to utilitarian things. A few years in the schools, however, was sufficient to kill airy originality that ho might have., (Laughter.) The Americans to-da; 1 were building bigger and finer' buildings than any other people, yet it was realised that they had not got as far as the ancient Greeks, or tho builders, of tho mediaeval ages. In concluding, and after expressing a desire for a discussion on his Temarks, the speaker said it was desirable to have tne fundamental, scientific, and natural laws underlying any new departure in architecture. (Applauso.) Mr. H. J. Hadden remarked that not many of thorn could echo the expressions of Mr. Griffin. Unfortunately, many of the men practising in Australia and the students'were children of convention, and in that tlie.y lacked tho broad liberty 1 ' which was the heritage of tho artists. They could not_ get jiway from the fact that tho "jerry builder," and not tho architect, was tho man.who pleased tho public taste. In tho suburbs, where 500 houses were built, 400 of them were built by the speculative builders, and not by the architect. . Mr. Griffin said the jerry builder, lie took it, was the natural product of architecture, as it was taufjht. (Laughter.) The architect did not stoop to get tho absolute maximum of result from the minimum of monoy as tho "jerry builder" did. When the arcliltects'did so they would get greater results than tho "jerry builder." Continuing, he remarked that the savago and primitive man wcro not victims ot conventionality. It was a strango thine that tho savages did not build suciruMy things, such monstrosities as their cities were. • (Laughter.) The originality of the savage accounted for tho beauty of a Polynesian village as compared with a colonial city. (Laughter.)