Tom MacW:
In my last post I shouldn’t have used the word “began” referring to naturalism post WW1. That’s certainly not true as naturalism in man-made architecture definitely was applied far before that, and that’s not what I meant to say about MacKenzie et al. I believe, however, as I’ve mentioned on other threads, that his ideas on camouflage particularly, amongst other things, took the application of naturalism in the man-made and constructed areas of architecture to more comprehensive and sophisticated levels than ever before.
In my opinion, the vast difference in style and look of “naturalism” in the features and overall architecture between the likes of MacKenzie, Colt, Fowler, Alison, Abercrombie et al and MacDonald/Raynor, Banks, Strong et al is fairly vast and noticeable. I do think, though, MacKenzie took it to the most advanced level.
That doesn’t mean for a minute that I’m criticizing the latter group for their architecture or the play of it just that it has a far more engineered and man-made look to portions of it. The reasons for that are many and varied, in my opinion, and most interesting.
We had these discussions before on threads on NGLA and your ideas about a “dichotomy” (I think was the word—or was it conundrum or riddle?) about the engineering of NGLA and MacD/Raynor.
I think the engineered look and style of portions of the architecture of MacD/Raynor is fascinating, particularly juxtaposed to the naturalness of their sites but I sure don’t think it melds into and mimics the look of nature remotely to the extent MacKenzie’s architecture does.
You might insist that there’re straight lines in nature very much conforming to those that much of MacD/Raynor’s architecture exhibits, and I’m sure somewhere there probably are but I sure don’t think those lines match or mimic the natural lines of their sites remotely as well as MacKenzie’s architectural lines match the natural lines of his sites.
You asked what differences I think there was in the pre and post WW1 architecture of a number of architects and those can be discussed later but I think there was very little difference in the pre and post WW1 architecture of MacD/Raynor but Mackenzie’s seemed to continue to evolve ever closer to good imitation in almost all ways to the look of the natural lines and aspects of his sites. Some of MacKenzie’s bunkering, including Cypress, was “stylized”, in my opinion, but still more of a good imitation of the look of his sites than MacD/Raynor’s .