Card C00207

RBF DEFINITIONS
Aesthetics of Uniformity:
(1)
"I must caution you that you will be confronted constantly by
the statement that mass production of houses eliminates the
aspect of individuality which is so cherished by humans and
without which they are afraid they will lose the identity of
their personality, therefore, mass production houses will never
gain popular acceptance.
-
"My answer to that is that reproduction or regeneration of
form is a fundamental of nature and that it is neither good nor
bad in itself. However, reproduction of originally inadequate
or awkward forms, or poor mechanics or wasteful structures
,
either by the hand of man or by the regeneration of the biologi-
If
cal species, tends to amplify the original characteristic.
the original is annoying, reproductions become increasingly
annoying; if the original is highly adequate to its designed
purpose, reproductions become increasingly pleasing
in the
confimation of adequacy. In the latter light, we continuously
admire a fine species of cultivated rose or nature's wild-
flowers the more frequently repeated, the more beautiful.
Conversely, the more frequently we see a maimed soldier, the
There
would be
more disheartening becomes the repetition.
even less virtue of the so-called individuality in the discovery*
Cite DESIGNING A NEW INDUSTRY, (RBF Reader, p.218), 1946