"Housing Design" 1954 Klaber, Eugene Henry

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KLABER, Eugene Henry

[247] pp.

Reinhold Publishing Corporation

1954

10 1/2" x 8 5/8"

Excerpt from Housing Design:

The attempt … Read more KLABER, Eugene Henry

[247] pp.

Reinhold Publishing Corporation

1954

10 1/2" x 8 5/8"

Excerpt from Housing Design:

The attempt here is to express and illustrate these principles so that those who design housing may have them as a background and can go forward with their work without too much stumbling over details and the consequent waste of time. This is no encyclopedia of housing, nor does it pretend to give final answers to the complex problems of housing design, many of which arise from economic and social conditions beyond the designer's control. It will accomplish its purpose if it prepares de signers to cope with those problems with awareness of the ways and needs of human living, if it prepares men and women who have inquisi tive minds and who develop their own methods of attack.

A word to students. In housing, every act and decision affects the lives of others and may continue to do so for decades, hence clear think ing and intellectual honesty are essential.

Simple as this may seem, clear thinking is extremely difficult in an age of advertising slogans and high pressure salesmanship which try to force one's thinking into certain channels and often to sell an inferior product by a formula of laudatory words. How many enriched foods have added nutritive value which is but a fraction of what the processor has extracted initially? This method of using cliches to sell goods to the public is also present in the field of architecture. Half the words which are bandied around in the name of modern architecture at cock tail parties are of this kind. No great art was ever created or fostered by words; it has always arisen out of work in the shop. We must there fore try to judge things for what they are, rather than by the words that are currently used about them.

I shall content myself with citing three examples of contemporary architectural clichés. See less