Art in Our Lives

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 414, 30 May 1947, Page 5

Art in Our Lives

N interesting contribution to the cultural democracy discussion that has just come to an end im our columns is the appearance in the shop-windows this week of a book called Design and Living.* The author, who had a European reputation as an architect before he came to New Zealand, and still has it, says simply that "we can live better with design than without it." Design is not affectation or artiness but harmony, something that works well and looks well, looks well because it works well, uses the most suitable materials, and belongs to its time and place. Because it is something, as simple as that, and yet as fundamehtal, it is within the reach of ordinary people; or comes within their reach as soon as they realise what it is. So the book is an attempt to show what design is, to say in words, and to illustrate in drawings, what goés into the planning of a good chair, or a good house, or a good town. It is all so simple, and expressed so reasonably, that no one who is interested in the subject at all will have trouble in understanding the argument or difficulty in accepting it. The author is not superior or uppish or contemptuous. He is not even impatient. Bad taste, he seems to be saying, is often only ignorance of good taste, lack of knowledge of a few simple principles and of acquaintance with a few simple designs. If we can’t all immediately distinguish the good from the bad, the good will hold its own against the bad if it gets a chance to compete on even terms. That, in any case, seems to be the author’s faith, and a faith expressed so reasonably ought to spread. *Design and Living. By E. A. Plishke. Printed and distributed by Whitcombe and Tombs for the Department of Internal Affairs.