Monuments of Time 
The Kawai piano is perfection ob- 
tained by the hand of time. Your 
investment in Kawai enhances 
with time. 
Kawai America Corporation 
24200 So. Vermont Ave.. Harbor City, Calif. 90710 
UNIQUE TURNER OFFER 
Signed " J M IV Turner 1818 " (19 x 17 in ) 
Superb quality print of a very beautiful Turner 
watercolour Art historian B L Binyon wrote in 
1909 "This is Turner at the peak of his powers, his 
palette is positively translucent ” The original is in 
a private collection in England, and has rarely 
been seen since 1819. when it was exhibited at 
Grosvenor Palace 
A few hundred copies were printed to commem- 
orate Turner’s bicentenary We have every one of 
them There will be no more available once these 
few are gone 
Print $14.90 (Framed $57 59) 
Calif residents add 6% tax. Tel (213) 452-2443 
oxford'galleries 
2210 Wilshire Blvd *627 
Santa Monica, CA 90403 
Name 
Add ress 
City State Zip 
□ VISA □ M.C. * Exp 
there was intense competition to secure 
the commission to build the Crystal 
Palace; although a few details about the 
maneuvering that went on are given, we 
learn nothing about the people involved. 
Various powerful figures are mentioned, 
but too little is said about them and their 
intentions, as in the case of Richard 
Turner, one of the era’s foremost engi- 
neers. He constructed the beautiful 
Palm House at Kew, sometimes compet- 
ing, and at other times cooperating, with 
the architect, Decimus Burton. More 
detailed examination of their interaction 
could have told us something about the 
attitudes and dynamics that generated 
some quite marvelous building designs. 
On the other hand, Hix covers a lot of 
ground in his attention to the develop- 
ment of productive greenhouses, the 
mastery of climate control, the industri- 
alization of building, the conservation of 
energy through the use of solar power, 
and the creativity associated with an 
orientation toward solving problems 
through technology. And he addresses a 
few of the many architectural issues 
that are germane to the evolution of 
glass buildings. The private conserva- 
tory, he observes, gained popularity, in 
part, because of changes in the uses of 
the middle-class house, which had once 
combined the functions of both home 
and workplace. As the house became 
increasingly a place for leisure and en- 
tertainment, the conservatory was con- 
ceived to enhance those new functions. 
In 1850, W. Bridges Adam, in describ- 
ing the criteria that should govern the 
building of the Crystal Palace, virtually 
coined what became, a half century 
later, the slogan of functionalism: “form 
follows function.” (Some of the early 
glass buildings described in the book are 
prophetic, foretelling such futuristic de- 
signs as Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion 
House or James Stirling’s marvelous 
work at Leicester.) Later, the author 
hints at the current critique of the func- 
tionalist position by quoting John Rus- 
kin, who in discussing the Crystal Pal- 
ace questions whether the solving of 
technical problems is enough to consti- 
tute meaningful architecture. Hix also 
touches on the dilemma arising out of a 
technocratic position. While the conser- 
vatories and exhibition halls of the nine- 
teenth century were beautiful and were 
built to promote nature, their ultimate 
extensions — as expressed in Buckmin- 
ster Fuller’s plan to cover part of New 
York City with a glass dome and later 
proposals for plastic-covered arctic 
cities — suggest, rather, an alienation 
from nature. We may enjoy visiting the 
rebuilt Enid D. Haupt Conservatory at 
The Victoria Regia house in Leyden 
120 
