ROMANTIC MOVEMENT FROM 1760 TO THE PRESENT DAY
and mine, a cottage in the country, and a car far from spectacular.
But as Managing Director of the London General Omnibus and the
London Underground Companies, Pick saw that to assemble artists
and architects round such a vast business enterprise would be to
bring Morris's ideals up to date. So before the first World War
he began to reform the lettering used, had one of the best
modern type-faces designed especially for his purpose and im-
pressed it so deeply on the minds of millions that a revolution
in British lettering ensued. Concurrently he started a campaign
for better posters, and again succeeded in establishing Britain in
the front rank of modern poster art. And when in the twenties
and thirties many new stations had to be built, he realised that
the Continent had evolved a style more suited than contemporary
English Neo-Georgian to express the synthesis of function and
civic dignity that was his ideal. So he found the right architect
in Mr. Charles Holden, and the London Underground stations
(fig, 100) became the most perfect examples in London of the
style of to-day, serviceable, uncompromisingly modern, and yet in
keeping with the quiet distinction of the Georgian brick house.
Those who are doubtful about the blessings of the Modern
Movement in architecture often say that the strongest argument
against it is the very fact that its most representative examples are
stations, factories, office buildings and the like. Now this is certainly
not an accident. It would not be possible to find anything like the
same number of good contemporary buildings for private luxury as
for workaday use. But then, does not the architect to-day build for
a population with nothing like the leisure for luxuries which patrons
of the Baroque enjoyed? Must that not change the style, if it is a
genuine style? Moreover, as has already been said, nearly every
building that is designed nowadays serves masses and not individuals.
Must not therefore our style be one adapted to mass production,
not only in the sense of production in masses but also for masses ?
Thus, if the new style is bare, if it goes straight to the point, there
are good reasons for it. The ground had first of all to be cleared of
the weeds of 19th-century sham ornamentation. Once that had been
done, all available energy had to be devoted to research into function.
What during the ipth century had been done slowly and anony-
mously, now became the central task of the architect. If you have to
build a soap factory, you must know how soap is being made. If
your job is to design a nursery-school, you must find out all about
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