Card C00208

RBF DEFINITIONS
Aesthetics of Uniformity:

"of soldiers' sons born with a half a face blown away, or with
three legs.
(2)
"Individuality goes far deeper than these surface manifestations
with which people have sought to decieve one another as to the
relative importance of their status and in the bitter struggle
to validate one's right to live. Those who were powerful but
ugly and lasy paid for fine clothes and fine surface architec-
ture, and a superstition has persisted that people who could
afford to pay must be superior individuals. The powerful have
whipped the weak for centuries on end to instill that superstit-
ion. As long as might excelled over right that superstition
had to continue. Now that we propose housing to be produced by
an industry in which right makes might at less than a pound
per horsepower the superstition is obsolete.
"There is no individuality in conventional houses. They are
all four-square boxes with varying lengths of rotting wood
Greek column, nailed on to the front, every house so similar
and the streets so similar that without signboards the stranger
cannot tell the difference between one American town and another,"
-
Cite DESIGNING A NEW INDUSTRY, (RBF Reader, p.218), 1946