Abstract
A SUGGESTIVE chapter in Bavink's "Anatomy of Modern Science" is devoted to a discussion of the technological ideal of fitness for a purpose. Over an increasingly wide sphere of life we are becoming aware to-day that the squalor, ugliness and lack of beauty in our surroundings are due at least in part to the neglect of this principle. The deplorable position of the Special Areas can be directly attributed, as the successive reports of the commissioners for those areas show, to our lack of design in the planning of industry. The acuteness of the problems in the government of London can be traced to a like cause, and chaos in transport, ribbon building and the destruction of amenities have a similar origin in the absence of any comprehensive design sufficient to compel planning and control on an adequate scale.
The Shape of Things
An Introduction to Design in Everyday Life. By Noel Carrington. Pp. xv + 209. (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, Ltd., 1939.) 6s. net.
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BRIGHTMAN, R. Design in National Life. Nature 145, 82–83 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145082a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145082a0
