DESIGN FOR TODAY

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Dean Joseph Hudnut's action against Design 1 recalls a somewhat similar action 25 or 30 years ago, when George Pierce Baker was forced to close the '47 Workshop in the drama. It seems unfortunate that Harvard is unable to keep up any such creative outposts for very long. This matter is hardly ever one of impracticability, for time and money have been found in the past for many projects. It is, I feel, a problem of the distrust of anything new and unfamiliar to University life. Baker went to Yale: Richard Filipowski has been approached by another university which realizes the necessity for the course. If we deplore the lack of a theatre now, how long will it take us to realize that we need Design 1 back again?

Design 1 embodies the ideas of the Bauhaus and of Walter Gropius--and the students and teachers at the Bauhaus were among the few who seriously considered the problem of living and creating in a mechanized society. They attempted to fuse technology and art, believing that a unifled theory of design should be the link between all forms of work. It is apparent that living in the world of today cannot be done by skulking behind lantern slides of the past or by fleeing into over-specialization. A relatively good stand against this is being made by the General Education courses, but Dean Hudnut is unconsciously fostering the opposite.

The work that is now being done at Robinson Hall is perhaps new and unfamiliar to us, although it is only using the basic tools of the artist: light, shape, color, and line. One may perhaps also grant that some of it is unsuccessful. The point is, however, that it is being done. And the 20 hours out of 42 that it requires is far too little to spend on a course which can change a student's entire approach to creative activity and, indeed, to life. The course has done just this for many of its students and, in doing so, has proved the validity of the Bauhaus principles. No amount of specialized training will do any good unless it is founded upon the solidity of such an approach and unless people are prepared for life in their own generation.

This is all demonstrated far more graphically by the front page of the CRIMSON for Saturday, February 3. For opposite the article on Design 1 we read about the burning of a cross in the Yard. In a world of chaos, such an episode is an example of blind stupidity and fear. This is, of course, an extreme result, but we have seen too many extreme results. The chaos and uncertainty of modern art and thinking finds its origin in a refusal, deliberate or not, to answer today's problems. Is it not Harvard's duty, as it has been the duty of universities throughout history, to protect the rights of men like Gropius and Filipowski who find at least one answer? The issue seems to me to be as deep as this, and not to stop on the level of practical difficulties with the curriculum. We must admit the existence of the problem; we must also preserve any solution we can find. John Benedict '54