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2.

[com]munity. On the other hand, if you reject tradition altogether you are in danger of
falling into a narrow utilitarian groove and rejecting beauty.

Today we hear a great deal about the functional purpose
in architecture. Well, that is a perfectly reasonable point of view
as long as we do not interpret the word too narrowly. The first
duty of an architect is to build something which will exactly fulfil
its purpose. I can think of some recent buildings which have every
merit except that they do not meet the purpose for which they were
erected. For all their magnificence they are a serious handicap to
those who have to work in them. But let us not interpret the word
"functional" too narrowly. Beauty of line, an appropriateness to
its setting, is as much a function of an edifice as its practical
utility.

[ST: the following paragraph was typed & corrected but then struck out in its entirety]
There was a time when modern Europe went crazy over this
word "functional", and credit a collection of soapbox monstrosities.
An unfriendly critic once said that Wagner's music was not as bad as
it sounded, and I can only hope that these buildings are not as ugly
as they look. One of the few merits of the new regime in Germany
is that it has put a stop to this form of ugliness.
[ST: end of struck out type]

But there is just as much danger on the other side. A
good tradition may be so slavishly followed that it becomes wholly
inappropriate, both to the modern landscape and to modern conditions
of life. I could give examples of many modern Scottish country
houses in which the Scots baronial style has become a thing of
pepper-box turrets and sham battlements; or some of the hideous
specimens of bastard Gothic in Oxford today. But all the same it
is a great thing to have a tradition behind you. How much of the