Rebuilding

“ The scientist and the engineer upon whose shoulders will rest the burden of rebuilding the new society, tighten their belts and turn to the mightiest task that men have ever faced.
The economic muddle in which the world now finds itself is one of many transition periods in the history of civilization,—a phase of the great revolution. Like any period of chaos, it is the seed-ground of the new order—the demolition which precedes construction.
Some day men may be wise enough and sufficiently well organized and equipped to demolish and construct at the same time. ”

“ Property often changed hands twice a day, and in three years the city was burned five times.
Each time thousands of men were ruined, but the smoldering wreckage was trampled out by other men busily rebuilding their city, larger and more splendidly. ”

“ And no doubt the fact that he has put up the temporary inclosure means that the rebuilding will be put into his hands, and no better man could probably be found.”
“You are right. If we employ him he ’s certain to lose no time about it.” ”

“ Some of the poorer classes, shrinking from the labor of rebuilding their old homes, proposed to abandon the site and make Veii their new capital. But love for the old spot at last prevailed over all the persuasions of indolence, and the people, with admirable courage, set themselves to the task of rebuilding their homes. ”

“ On the other hand, when, on approaching maturity, the structures are assuming their final arrangement, their increasing definiteness and firmness constitute an increasing impediment to growth: the unbuilding and rebuilding required before there can be the needful readjustment become more and more difficult. ”

“ For the community as a whole it means a speedy restoration of such economical and industrial activities as have been temporarily suspended, the rebuilding of bridges, the reopening of streets, the reëstablishment of banks, business houses, churches, schools. ”

“ But we are not building a new city on unoccupied ground; there are some foundations truly laid which have withstood the fire and storm and which cannot be disturbed without both risk and useless toil. There are still edifices standing to which time has given a beauty and tradition a sanctity which newer creations cannot possess. ”

“ The houses will be near the factory; there will be playgrounds, drying-grounds, probably garden allotments, a hostel for single men, a reading-room, and some place of amusement. The development of industrial villages by private enterprise, encouraged in every possible way, is one of the most hopeful things to look forward to in the rebuilding of Britain. There can be no greater pleasure for anyone who has any vision of what the future of housing accommodation for the working classes may be than to read Mr. ”

“ Carefully repaired, when the weakness is noticed at all, it can bear a little more, and again a little, but at last the breaking strain is reached, the tall building totters, the highest pinnacles topple over, then the upper story collapses, and the end comes either in the crash of a great falling or, by degrees, in the irreparable ruin of ages. But when all is over, and wind and weather and time have swept away what they can, parts of the original foundation still stand up rough and heavy, on which a younger and smaller people must build their new dwelling, if they build at all. ”

“ Round some towns, the estates of great landowners form a ring fence barring any growth of the town until, when trade is good and the town is expanding, extravagant prices can be obtained for the land of which they have the monopoly. High ground rents are fixed when trade is inflated, jerry-builders then start erecting houses, borrowing sometimes from building societies the whole amount required to enable them to build, and the houses are either sold or let at very high rents. ”

“ But those who make the changes wrought in our day under the name of Restoration, while professing to bring back a building to the best time of its history, have no guide but each his own individual whim to point out to them what is admirable and what contemptible: while the very nature of their task compels them to destroy something, and to supply the gap by imagining what the earlier builders should or might have done. Moreover, in the course of this double process of destruction and addition, the whole surface of the building is necessarily tampered with ”

“ You see then that it is their way of spurring themselves on to work. They talk, but they work, and as each builder's yard sets about building a house, in the end you find that the city has been re-builded. ”

“ The work before us, then, is not only to recover the plan of the edifice, but to dislodge the occupants, who maintain that their city is superb, and, at the very mention of restoration, appear in battle-array at their gates. ”

“ Why erect new houses, when those already built will last their time and the world's? Why repair their mouldering dwellings, or renew the falling fences of their fields, or replace their dying olives with young trees, or even patch their own ragged garments? ”

“ Alas! in the present state of science, we must take the finished articles away; but think not that man will always be the victim of circumstances.
The countryman who visited the city, and found the streets cluttered with bricks and lumber, reported that it was not yet finished; and one who considers the endless repairs and reforming of our houses might well wonder when they will be done. But why may not the dwellings of men on this earth be built, once for all, of some durable material, some Roman or Etruscan masonry, which will stand, so that time shall only adorn and beautify them? ”

“ Reform means more than repair. Mend, patch, take down a little here, prop up some tottering nuisance there, fill in gaping chinks with patent legislative cement, coat old facades with bright paint, hide decay beneath a gloze of novelty, titivate, decorate, furbish—and after all your house is not a new one, but a whited sepulchre shaking to decay. ”

“ Whilst we are living in the very city which we have to improve, and in great part to rebuild, what else can we do but pull down here and there a street at a time, and reconstruct it on a better plan? It is miserable work this pulling down. ”

“ To close a factory is to hasten the time when buildings and machinery will be piled upon the rubbish heap. The most magnificent and solid works of man have crumbled under the finger of time. The earth is strewn with ruins of gigantic engineering works, aqueducts, canals, temples, and monuments, whose restoration would be no less a task than was their first building. Everywhere vigilance and repairs are the conditions of continued uses of wealth. ”

“ Old houses, churches, and cottages have tumbled into ruin, or have suffered worse destruction by a process of smartening up called "restoration." The people have crowded into the overcrowded towns, increasing the competition for employment, the chances of which are lessened by the very industry of the workers themselves, and so our great cities blindly become huger, more dangerous, and generally unlovely, losing, too, by [pg 217] degrees their relics of historic interest and romance they once possessed. ”

“ The building that we do annually is not of clear gain, for we are constantly losing old buildings by fire, obsolescence or demolition. A comparative study of the statistics of new building construction along with increased population shows that in late years the additions have fallen short of the requirements of the growth in population. ”

“ These advantages are but for the purpose of laying the foundation; the building is the work of after years. And he who does not build, does not even preserve the foundation. Alas! how many well-laid foundations have moldered into ruin! ”

“ If any society had come there and put those houses into a state of perfect repair at once, it would have been of little use, because its work would have been undone again by the bad habits and carelessness of the people. ”

“ The possibility of a rapid repair of their disasters, mainly depends on whether the country has been depopulated. If its effective population have not been extirpated at the time, and are not starved afterwards; then, with the same skill and knowledge which they had before, with their land and its permanent improvements undestroyed, and the more durable buildings probably unimpaired, or only partially injured, they have nearly all the requisites for their former amount of production. ”

“ It is extremely easy to pull down a house, but it requires skill and special training to rebuild it again; and before dragging the roof off and demolishing the walls, it would be wiser to have made a distinct plan and provided the materials ready for the reconstruction of a new habitation, that the rain and the wind may not overcome us when we have no shelter for our heads. ”

“ He would always, therefore, he said, be, by choice, an improver, rather than a reformer; introducing corrections and additions, from time to time, as occasion offered, rather than letting a building become so inconvenient or ruinous as to require being pulled down and rebuilt. ”

“ While the ruins are still smoking, some of the most business streets are being rebuilt, and the rapidity with which the work [233] progresses is magical. The buildings now constructing being of wood and of frail material, are soon erected; and many house-frames were in the market, the remains of former speculations, which enables the builders to advance rapidly. The activity of the workman is exhausting ”

“ WE have reason to be proud of the phenomenal growth of our American cities, the beauty of their buildings and the vast volume of building construction that is yearly carried on in the process of that growth. But a careful analysis shows us that that great volume of building is not all growth, but is, to a very great extent indeed, the replacing of buildings that have been destroyed by fire. ”

“ Their houses and fruit-trees—the product of generations of labor—have been swept away. The valley is filled with debris. As the water recedes, the wreckage must first be picked up, then the whole population must fall to with a will and rebuild the community—put up houses, re-plant trees, re-make gardens, repair roads. ”

“ What has been more significant are the large-scale reconstruction of bombed or blighted cities, the rehousing of very considerable segments of the population, and the provision of the manufacturing facilities, the offices, and the stores required by greater industrial, financial, and commercial activity. ”

“ As the boom had fed upon itself, carrying prices to heights justifiable only to the most insane optimism, so did the subsequent depression bear down upon values until they reached depths justifiable only to the most abandoned despondency. Building operations came to a standstill. Carpenters, masons, brick-layers, painters, plumbers, labourers found themselves out of employment. ”

“ Actual progress has scarcely been arrested. We are rudely hustled and awake to higher and severer effort. No house or store or factory or business will be rebuilt or established except in a larger and more efficient way, and that is progress. ”

“ Soon you will see one and another citizen pushing his way through the débris, running wildly and excitedly about, as though greatly frightened and distressed at the state of things. Then more carefully surveying the ruins, apparently consulting together as to what is best to be done, until, a plan of action having been devised and settled upon, if you wait long enough, you will see a band of workers in an orderly, systematic manner begin to repair the damage. ”

“ Most men thought that such a building would be his ruin before its completion; but he had planned to finish it in every detail, year by year out of his income, without diminishing his capital, and would have done so if death, which often interrupts magnificent and great enterprises, had not prevented him. ”

“ And concurrently with the systematic reconstruction of a large portion of our industries upon these lines there will have to be a vigorous development of the attempts that are already being made, in garden cities, garden suburbs, and the like, to re-house the mass of our population in a more civilised and more agreeable manner. ”

“ And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places—thou shalt raise up the foundation of many generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in. ”

“ The modern city has been built as a profiteer's paradise. From the construction of houses to the erection of office buildings, the one foremost question: "What per cent will it yield?" has been the guiding principle behind city construction. ”

“ In the course of 30 years under this arrangement, most construction and production would undergo a fundamental change for the better, as old, dilapidated and obsolete buildings and machines disappeared and new ones appeared in their place. ”

“ Building was essentially a commercial business; the rights or needs of the community did not enter into the question. Each man built for his day and generation: the future was left to take care of itself. ”

“ Great trading houses of old standing came to ruin, fortunes were shattered, and crisis after crisis came and went, but every such period merely added a fresh chapter to the history of the town, making new stories for fathers to tell their sons. ”

“ Will you take in hand the necessary cleansing and repairs and thus restore the old, or will you pull the whole edifice down to the ground and seek to build another in its place, after a sordid modern plan whose permanence has yet to be established? ”

“ Houses that stood unmoved through many fierce convulsions went down like brittle reeds, and old Corporations which were thought to be as immovable as the hills tottered and fell, crushing hundreds amid their gigantic ruins. ”