MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IDO not think that I could really like a person who was contemptuous about fairs. Such heaviness of spirit implies a mind as impervious as synthetic rubber, a mind robbed of all sparkle. For me a fair recreates the wild anticipations of childhood, the exhilaration of adolescence, the tinkle and glitter of illusions that are imperishable. What a delight it is to emerge into the streets of London carrying in one hand a large pink balloon and in the other an ingenious gadget for peeling potatoes without pain. It is this quality of happy illusion that gives to the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition all the fantasy of an enormous circus ; even the little tunes that are relayed at intervals from the loud-speakers trip and caper with the gaiety of a foirail. Mr. Trevor Smith, the consultant architect, and Mr. James Gardner, the designer, arc to be congratulated upon their imagination, taste and daring. The great hall itself is aglow with faint colours and muffled lights ; the separate stands com- bine intimacy, variety and self-expression ; even the grim grey corridors of Olympia—so suggestive of the sinister prisons and dens of a Roman amphitheatre—bubble with merriment. The sounds that reach the ears are as varied and insistent as those of some Oriental bazaar ; the radio radiates, there are the dim undertones of a wondering and appreciative populace, washing machines chink and gurgle, and from stand to stand the showmen display and explain their wares in voices that would be penetrating were it not that the human larynx collapses when a monologue is too prolonged: How white, how beautiful are the refrigerators! How recumbent are the garden sofas that one wheels! How gentle are the tints of rayon and how couth the surface that plastic supplies! Truly the Ideal Home Exhibition enables one to forget the storm-clouds and to feel that the Welfare State is here before one's eyes.
* * * * I found myself wondering in what terms Mr. Charles Truefitt, when he started to organise this splendid exhibition, envisaged the audience whom he wished to attract. Did he cast his net as wide as possible, hoping to entrap a public as diverse as that described in one item of the catalogue as " industrialists, housewives, car-owners and cyclists " ? Did be conceive only of the weary wife and mother who desires to inspect and acquire the practical devices that will save her labour and keep her family clean and warm? Did he envisage foreign buyers and hope by the exuberance of his fancy to do something even more to close the dollar gap? Or did he only aim at displaying all that is best in our modern industrial design and at rendering his fair as gay, as sensible and as pretty as taste and ingenuity can contrive? If the latter was his object, then assuredly he is to be congratulated on his success. There can be no doubt at all that the standard of our industrial designing has enormously improved during the last five years. The old art-and-craft tradi- tion has not, it must be confessed, been wholly liquidated ; we arc still confronted with " genuine old-world hand-made fire- places." The catalogue, displaying as it often does real mastery of English commercial prose, may still indulge to a distressing degree in that horrible word " unique," Not all the exhibits have been arranged to display their functional purpose, and one is confronted at the very entrance by a " unique " patch of garden containing a floral reproduction of a tin of Cherry Blossom Boot Polish and enlivened by little fountains that splutter gaily among the bedding plants and shrubs.
* * * * Yct es one strolls from stand to stand, examining the furniture fabrics, the new enamel paints, the electric-light fittings and the radiators,. one cannot but feel that the buying public are becom- ing wearied of meaningless over-decoration, and have at last realised that more durable satisfaction is to be extracted from simpler colours and forms. Only in pottery and glassware does this trend towards simplicity appear to have been arrested ; it is difficult to find a flower-vase that is not ruined by some idiotic elaboration or a wineglass that possesses, as it ought to possess, a deep and thoughtful shape. I urge the Council of Industrial Design, who should feel that this exhibition is a reward for all their tactful work, to concentrate their energy upon bringing back to England the old tradition of formal simplicity that rendered our glass and china a pleasure to the eye and hand. The visitor, if wearied by aesthetics, can obtain much light relief. There is the stall erected by the Ministry of Food, displaying live English lamb capering among the primroses. There is Mr. Cube who, on being interrogated, will discourse upon sugar with his synchronised lip movements and his electronic brain. There is the Forum, enabling the public to ask questions of " polished speakers and thinkers." There is even, tucked away in a corner, a display of books. The main feature of this exhibit is a selection of 100 books chosen for us by Mr. Wilfred Pickles and accom- panied by a " special message " which Mr. Pickles has been so kind as to draft. And finally, in an annexe, will be found the " Garden of Music." As many as seventeen miniature gardens=- complete with cascades, azaleas and woodland huts, diversified by large rocks littered cunningly amid the sward, flaunting all the flowers of spring and early summer—are ranged with ingenious lack of symmetry. The roof and lights are veiled in muslin, imparting to the " Garden of Music " the hushed expectancy of an approaching thunderstorm. A concealed nightingale throbs out her plaint with mechanical iteration ; in the far corner an orchestra of 'young ladies, dressed in bright print frocks, play selections from Puccini with deep, although restrained, emotion. It is agreeable to sit there, beside the water- fall, waiting for the thunderstorm to break.
My impression that we are witnessing a definite improvement in the public taste is confirmed for me by an investigation recently undertaken by Mass Observation. They supplied their investi- gators with alternative photographs of four different objects—a cup and saucer, a clock, a cabinet and a bus-shelter. These photographs, representing several gradations from the simple to the elaborate, were submitted to 250 Londoners who were asked to state their preferences and to indicate the reasons for their choice. The first consideration, as was to be expected, was that of price. The second consideration was that of function, com- prising such qualities as durability, convenience, suitability and cleanliness. In so far as aesthetic considerations entered into these preferences, it was shown that the majority of those inter- rogated showed a marked preference for compromise. On the one hand, they disliked anything that suggested the " unusual " or the " gaudy." On the other hand, they were inclined to regard the over-simple as rather mean. What was so interesting was that a large number definitely disapproved of over-decoration what they wanted was something " neat " ; only one of thosc, who was examined used the expression " dainty." Flowers." she remarked of the tea-cup, " are always dainty." Yet this witness was a woman of middle age ; the younger people in the great majority dismissed the more elaborate designs as " non- sense." That surely gives cause for encouragement. * * * * The conclusion reached by Mass Observation was that function was less of an invariable popular criterion than the design experts suppose. People wanted things to be "sensible" ; they did not care for anything that was too " modern " or " conspicuous " ; but they liked colour if sparingly applied. The investigation showed a genuinely cautious attitude towards the unusual, whether the highly decorated or the ultra-simple." This evidently shcms an improvement in public taste since the 1947 " Britain Can Make It " exhibition, when they were all for lavish decoration. i explains why the present fair at Olympia should such an improvement on its predecessors. And it be
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