Otto Neurath, born in Vienna, mathematician, statistician,
philosopher (a leading light in the Vienna Circle, a logical positivist),
sociologist, inventor of Isotype (an international language of signs), and a
socialist. In Vienna he worked on working class housing in the era of “Red
Vienna”. He was half Jewish and a socialist, so when Nazi Germany
threatened he retreated to Holland and then, in 1944, to Britain. (He once said
that he spoke “broken English fluently”). There he and his soon to be wife,
Marie, were immediately interred. Being an acceptor, he got on with it and seems
to have found the experience interesting and not entirely unenjoyable. On
release he moved to Oxford where he not only lectured but embarked on a career
as a consultant, particularly on matters relating to the housing of the working
classes; and on the use of Isotypes as a means of clear communication of facts
and figures.
Neurath was noted as being a kindly and jovial character.
Everyone seems to have spoken well of him – including all three of his wives.
Karl Popper, the philosopher described him as “a big, tall, exuberant man with
flashing eyes.... The impression was of a most unusual personality, a man of
tremendous vitality and drive”. And Bilston’s town clerk, A.V. Williams said
that “He made one believe in the dignity of human beings” and that “the pursuit
of beauty and happiness could be achieved by the common man”. “When he came to
Bilston we had a surfeit of little men embracing big ideas. But in him there was
no contempt; he made us feel that the pursuit of beauty and happiness could be
achieved by the common man”.
He became a consultant to Bilston,
apparently at the instigation of the A. V. Williams. He came to Bilston on
several occasion and talked to officers and members but also spent a lot of time
in the slum areas due to be demolished and talking to the inhabitants.
It seems that he advised on housing generally but what the council would have
had in mind at the time was the Stowlawn estate and another proposed estate at
Bradley. Although Neurath held, and had expressed, views on the physical layout
of housing estates it seems that the only impact he had on the Stow Lawn scheme
was that some detailed alterations were made to Lloyd’s version of the estate in
1945. Although something of a polymath, Neurath was not an architect. Neurath
seems mainly to have advised on housing policy. Here, in random order, are some
of the points he made whilst in Bilston.
• At a meeting with Neurath, A V
Williams told him that there was concern that the people to be re-housed were
beyond redemption and might use their new bathroom to store coal. Dr Neurath
said that he wanted to make some basic points clear:
a) The percentage of
truly anti-social persons in any community is so small as to be almost
negligible
b) Within reasonable limits there must be the greatest
possible decentralisation of administration – administration must go to the
people and not vice versa (e.g. small libraries and clinics should be embedded
in the estates and, as far as possible, run by the community).
c) All
people tend to strive to the utmost of their ability towards a higher standard
of living
• People only put coals in the bathtub for some very good
reason, e.g. an inadequate or highly inaccessible storage place, or because the
hot water system was so expensive that the hardship involved in using the bath
for its proper purpose renders the amenity worthless.
• There was no
justification for the statement that one bad tenant in a road or block of flats
would spread the disease to his neighbours, thereby making them ant-social. On
the contrary, a good tenant tends to produce greater social consciousness in his
neighbours. [Do you keep your step clean?]
• Ordinary floor boards are
hard to keep clean in the absence of linoleum. Then the whole house becomes
dirty. In Vienna they had used parquet floors which are easily mopped clean and
in nearly all houses the whole house was kept clean.
• Pay particular
attention to the needs of minorities – such as the elderly and children.
• Do not use large green belts and play areas but something more compact where
the children can be surveyed. One idea is to have the small back garden of
houses backing onto the road over which was a play area, so all the mothers
could watch all the children from the kitchens.
• On estates, mix up
individuals: married and unmarried, old and young. Do not create ghettos of, for
example, old people, who, if they are stuck altogether in flats, will feel
isolated, lonely and unwanted. If you put them in with young people they can do
things like babysitting and feel useful and wanted.
• Unmarried persons
can be divided into those who will eventually marry and those who never will. If
you put them all into one block of flats, the marrying kind will move out and
you will be left with nothing but people who will never marry. “Care must be
taken to avoid the accidental creation of a lunatic asylum”.
• You must
study the existing community structure in the slums you are rehousing and ensure
these connections are not broken upon the new estate.
• Bear in mind that
different people had different needs and do not plan housing on a “one size fits
all” basis. You have to work out what sorts of houses and flats to build and who
to put in them.
• The general idea is to promote happiness, whilst
recognising that what makes one person happy might make another miserable.
• The English fireplace is a highly inefficient form of heating but that
does not mean you have to have fitted kitchens without one: the fireplace
provides for sociability and provides pleasure.
The story continues in Part 7