THE "decorative arts" are going strong! After 30 years of underground work they are at their height. Enthusiastic commentators talk of regenerating French art! All we need remember of this adventure (which will finish badly) is that something more is being born than a rebirth of decoration: a new epoch is replacing a dying one. Machinery, a new factor in human affairs, has aroused a new spirit. An epoch creates its own architecture, and this is the clear image of a system of thought. During the topsy-turvydom of this critical period, till the arrival of a new age with its ideas set in order, clear and lucid, and with definite desires, decorative art was like the straw which drowning men are said to clutch at in a storm. A vain refuge! Let us remember of this adventure that decorative art at least provided a good opportunity to unload the past and to feel our way once more towards the spirit of architecture. The spirit of architecture can only result from a particular condition of material things and a particular condition of mind. It would seem that events have succeeded one another sufficiently rapidly for a state of mind belonging to the period to assert itself and for the spirit of architecture to reach a formula. Even if the decorative arts are now at the dangerous height which goes before a fall, we may still
