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‘The house of the future will be designed as a ship is designed, as an organism which has to function properly in all its parts. A whole row of ambiguous words have come between us and the immediately given data of architecture. Design is not abstract power exercised by a genius, it is simply the arranging how work shall be well done.’
W.R. Lethaby (1857 –1931) was an architect and educator. Influenced by his friend William Morris, Lethaby’s writings mark a transitional point between the 19th and 20th centuries. Lethaby argues with foresight for an ‘efficiency style’ in architecture, for towns which cultivate vitality and against the science of ‘profit grinding and grabbing’. Lethaby suggests a vision of a modern world inspired by the efficiency of nature.
‘No one ever put the case for functionalism better than Lethaby did long before Le Corbusier’s manifestoes appeared.’ Lewis Mumford
