Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Here the place is infected by rats and cockroaches, family in bad health—
suffering with chests. Two children have died of diptheria.
The windows are provided with blinds which can darken the cage, so that the
tropical
conditions, natural to gorillas, of twelve hours darkness and twelve hours
light may be
reproduced.
Bedroom in which the family sleep is practically pitch dark even in the
daytime.
In the centre of the floor of the winter cage there is a small basin and fountain,
operated by a brass knob in the floor, manipulated by the gorillas.
A very bad feature of this property is the water and lavatory accommodation
—one tap between six houses and one w.c. between three.
Inside, the colour scheme was chosen to eliminate the oppressive sense of prison
that is
apparent in many animal cages.
The walls of the room are covered with a pink distemper, the distemper
flaking off with the damp.
(
AJ
1933:834)
'In a home fit for gorillas to live in,' the journal maintained, 'the country possesses
an asset which may be regarded as a standard of comparison for future building—
for human beings as well as animals' (
AJ
1933:834).
The implication of the irony here is clear. While human society, with the benefits
of social progress, had failed to provide its working classes with decent, healthful
homes, 'mere' animals were being advanced and nurtured by enlightened
applications of science. But while the zoo buildings appeared to point to a perverse
divide between buildings for humans and for non-humans, there was, in fact, far
more connection than might at first appear between Lubetkin's zoo buildings and
the socially committed science of Huxley or the biotechnics of Mumford. Many of
the analytical techniques and practical solutions utilised by Lubetkin and Tecton in
their zoo buildings were developed in parallel in buildings for human use and
habitation. Lubetkin had, for instance, prepared plans in 1932 for a TB clinic at
East Ham that set out elements (common to the Gorilla House) that would feature
in many of Tecton's health-related designs (Coe and Reading 1981). The design
was streamlined, hygienic and deliberately promoted the virtues of modernism in
environmental and social reform. It was based 'biotechnically' on maximum
penetration of sunlight and fresh air. The building's
