Sh Ui TALL ei

RIES of

sky-piercing

‘Spires, free-standing amid
vast gardened village — is

the shape of tomorrow's

tity?
Frank Lloyd, Wright, the 87-
War - old world - renowned
Wehitect, recently unveiled in
i ago his conception of this
W urban world.

Tfound him among the ex-

tS, luncheons, testimonia!
irs marking this city’s
eek-long tribute to him.

‘ me up to my hotel room
Md We'll talk,’ said Wright.
He had just staggered Chica-
7 With his plan for a mile-
“88 building to be situated
M the lakefront. But Wright
‘tas for 50 years been an in-
"entive groundbreaker, bold
; ative, controversial.
7, Not another skyscraper,”
jte €xplained, “but a sky city,
| 4Y representative of the 20th
tury.”
Americans never ‘seem to
ite Of new concepts of the
City Of the Future, no matter
_ Visionary. But Wright is
wing about something
Yhich he insists is practical
"ow, “as utilitarian as a pair
| t Shoes,”
He Conceives of a_ planned
Orderly city in which the
commercial structures
ite Several of these towering

$s. Here the city’s work-

yy. *Y would go home to
4 dleasa cs
'q st dwellings, surround-

Y greenery and room-

o&
An acre to the individual,”
tim ©, Sussested as a mini
Unitea Reflect that in the
7 States there are about
Steen acres each, for every
n, Woman and child within
Orders,” said Wright.
‘Blan, explained how such a
; . See permit us to “get
ley a rubbish” which clut-
7 eee ® cities, but also the

cramped apartments, the obso-
lete factories, and even the so-
called modern structures
which Wright calls outmoded.

“These skyscrapers we have
been building still are no more
than tinselized boxes,” he de-

clared, ‘and all efforts to
make a box really tall will
fail,”

The radical principles of de-
sign. which Wright has cham-

nioned for a generation aré
k

cliimaxed in the new “sky-city”

which he has
“Build three
in Chicago or put a half-dozen
in New York’s Central Park
and you can replace all other
commercial structures,” he
said.

He stood up tall to explain
his principle of construction.

“This mile-high building is
like a -tree, with a central

building
ceived,

-on-
of them

By CARL HIRSCH

trunk or core,” he ~ said.

Stretching out his arms, he

“The
tached to this trunk,

went on, floors are at-

like my
arms. And if I drop my fingers,
that represents the outer shell,
light and pendant and sup-
ported by the core with wires.”

We went over the plans for
“The Illinois,” as this new de-
named. Its central
feature is a great slim-tapered
tripod, a sword with its hilt

sign is

=

Vancouver has
\

eh

1,200 blighted acres,

What will Vancouver be in 20 years?

HAT will Vancouver be
like 20 years from now?
According to the experts

who ought to know, the
metropolitan area will

double its population and
car usage will be three
times what it is today. This
means that there is plenty

of room for bold, imagina-

tive town planning — and

a bold, imaginative city
council!
City planning director

‘Gerald Sutton-Brown dis-
cussed some of his ideas on
the subject at the annual
meeting of the Vancouver
Civic Non-Partisan Associ-
ation last week.

He called for a balanced
network of express high-
ways converging on the cen-

tre of Vancouver and the
renewal of 1,200 blighted
acres.

97

He also reported that 27,-
000 Vancouverites five in
the blighted areas, many of
them under the poorest con-
ditions.

“They must be rehoused
under at least minimum

conditions for a healthy
and useful existence. If they
are allowed to spread into

adjacent areas as rebuild-
ing. takes place, it will

spread the loss of economic
values to other parts of the
city,” he declared.
Sutton-Brown icld his
-audience that the time is
ripe for decisive action.
“Federal and provincial
governments have recog-
nized the situation and since
last spring have drawn up
new formulas to provide
greater assistance to muni-
cipalities for both slum
clearance and_ redevelop-
ment. But the city must be
prepared to pay its share.
“Now is the time to tackle
redevelopment, while: the
housing situation is exceed-
ing the population growth,”
he said. “The next 10 years
are critical, for by 1965 we
may face another housing

shortage.

“Demolition of old. and
blighted areas will make
plenty of room for new

buildings.”

NOVEMBER 16, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 11

encased deep in _ concrete
against the natural bedrock.

The 528 light floor slabs ar
this steel

structure

across
S the entire
light, rigid, balanced.
The architect explained one
of its features —

extended

a system of
escalators and atomic-powered
elevators. The  tandem-cab
elevators would each have
five levels, serving five stories

at once, rising at mile-a-minute
speeds.

“This is no rash experiment,”
said Wirght, “This is a build-
ing for this century designed

in the cause of utility, human- ,

ity and democracy.”

What of the
which Wright’s
a United States paralized by
dying capitalism and in a
world terrorized by the atomic
bomb?

The architect has long strug-
gléed with what he calls “com-
mercial - greed,” the force
which has imprisoned many of
his greatest designs to the
drawing board.

He once described capitalist
society as’a great “taximeter of
rent, rent for land, rent for
money, rent for manhood.” He
ls a champion of what he calls
individuality in a social order
which is the opponent of
Wright’s ideals of “the free
citizen in the free city.”

But rejectins italism and

what he un é

iderstands as social-

contradictions
ideas face in

ism, Wright expresses hope in
the ibility of halting
atomic war and of moving this
society ahead in spite of what
1e calls “the conservatives, the
id-sitters and stand-patters.”

“If you are not a radical, you
have no real place here,” he
said, “for an American by na-
ture is a radical.”

pos

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