University of Virginia Library

Modulus Five Discusses
Humanistic Environment

Environment? Is it anything more than
the newest architectural cliche?

Marshall McLuhan has observed that
we are generally as unaware of our
environment as a fish is unaware of the
water in which it swims. At any rate we
have in the past taken the environment
for granted. It is all around; it is always
there; and so we have paid little or no
attention to it. The result of this
laissez-faire attitude is becoming painfully
apparent, both to us and to the
fish. It manifests itself in the unchecked
exploitation of man by man, in a land
policy that "developes" 3,000 acres of
open space per day, in the impersonal
and inhuman arrangements of public
housing projects and the equally depressing
conditions that prevail in the ghettos
of the affluent.

Not to be outdone by NBC, CBS, and
other lesser rivals, the students of the
School of Architecture have decided to
demonstrate their concern and commitment
by devoting their annual
publication, Modulus, to investigating
and understanding environmental problems,
particularly those in urban areas.

Resolution of these problems will
require new approaches, new thinking,
new commitments and new controls to
insure a more humane environment. In
its attempt to explore the subject of
environmental controls, Modulus 5 has
contacted prominent persons in various
selected fields.

Dramatis Personae include:

Nelson Rockefeller - a Governor -
on political approaches to environmental
problems.

Frank Manciewicz - a press secretary
to R. F. Kennedy - on the image of Los
Angeles.

John Ely Burchard - a Dean
Emeritus at MIT - on the state of
architecture today.

The Rouse Company - builders of
Columbia, Md. - on the philosophy of
new towns.

Harvey S. Perloff - a Dean at UCLA
- on the need for environmental
controls.

John Zeisel, Brent Brolin - a pair of
peripatetic social scientists - on sociology
as a basis for design.

Modulus 5 will be the most comprehensive
and compelling issue to date,
a 7 by 7 by ½ inch slice of an expanding
universe, a multidimensional omnidirectional
experience at once superficial
yet profound, amateur yet professional,
oriented to physical designs and programs
yet dealing with man and
environment as a whole, and most of all
both meaningful and relevant at the
same time. It will be a humanistic
adventure.

Modulus 5 will be published in early
May. Subscriptions are available in Fayer
weather Hall, main drafting room,
between 2 p.m. and midnight for the
sum of two dollars. Leftovers will be
sold at Mincer's, Newcomb Hall and
Galleries III.