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Introduction by Frank Pick 

Dr. Groupius has asked me to write an introduction to this essay. There seems little need for one. It is a plea for thinking out afresh all the problems of building in terms of current materials and current tools, tools which have become elaborated into machines. It asks that what the past did for wood and brick and stone, the present shall do for steel and concrete and glass. It rightly claims that only out of such a fresh input of thought can a true architecture be established. What interests me still more, it proceeds to observe that what applies to architecture equally applies in those fields of design which relate to things of everyday use. 

Such a plea comes at an opportune time, for a lively attention is being directed by more and more people to these problems. This generation is becoming conscious of art not as something apart and curious, but as something vital and essential to the fullest life, as something 

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