HOUSES FOR THE FUTURE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 201, 30 April 1943, Page 3

HOUSES FOR THE FUTURE

Sir,-"I conceive of a house as a place of shelter from the elements but as free and open as it is architecturally possible for it to be." So speaks your New Zealand architect, Why bedrooms and so on must be private instead of having glass from ceiling to floor like the other rooms is beyond my comprehension. After all is said and written, nobody desires privacy in this land of the free, and it would be so nice (wouldn’t it, dearie?), if we could only see the Browns doing quite ordinary things such as scratching the head or wrestling with the baby’s recalcitrant napkin, or should we sometimes say the recalcitrant baby’s napkin? Oh, no, Mr. Architect-please do not place any limits on this brilliant idea of freedom, space and glass partitions. Look how simply wonderful it would be if I

could watch the comings and goings of all and sundry without having to indulge in the undignified custom of creeping behind the curtains like a thief in the night. For the love of Mike do not let us drift back into the old-fashioned English conception of regarding the house as a home where one might for a brief period shut out undesirable features and relax without being closely observed by "Peeping Toms." "Away with these anti-social characteristics and up with the shop front windows" should be our building slogan, and while we are on the job, what about cutting down all those hedges and other unnatural obstructions between gardens? You know, it is ever so difficult to see what the next-door neighbour is doing without being caught peeping through the fence. Of course there is a possibility that he might be minding his own business-such is the retrograde nature of some individuals — but we must not permit that type of person to hinder the march of progress and publicity,

ALBERT E.

YOUNG

(Rotorua).