When the Twiverton Literary Supplement did a profile of George Rotinoff they described him as "the Isambard Kingdom Brunel of prefab engineering." He applied the expertise he had built up from years in shipbuilding to design a de luxe New Model Prefab which is now on show somewhere in the North of England. It has all kinds of jazzy accessories - sinks with double drainers, dry goods cupboards, built-in shelves, drop-flat tables. You name it, the New Model Prefab has it!
The one thing it does not have is spheres. If you want to hear the Platonic music of prefab spheres you will have to cross the Atlantic and get hold of R. Buckminster Fuller. His first spherical prefab house was put on display in a Chicago department store in 1929. Ever since then buffs have been saying "We have seen the pre-fabricated future and it is round!" In 1949 R.Buckminster Fuller unveiled his lightweight aluminium Wichita House. Its geodesic domes took prefab panache to a new level, even though none of George Rotinoff's drop-flat tables were inside.
There is nothing geodesic about our own 'AIROH Aluminium prefab', but at least when you step inside it there are no fears of being bathed in a mysterious green glow and taking off in flying saucer fashion to planet Mars. Art college students spend untold hours debating whether the dominant principle of design should be form or function, beauty or utility. What the 'AIROH' shows is that it is possible to have both! Miss Silk-Farr (who spent a term at the West of England College of Art and enjoys taking midnight strolls around our prefab estate) says that the success of the 'AIROH' design is a ringing endorsement of the "Form must follow function!" philosophy.
When someone first catches sight of our prefabs - with the coalhouses and water butts standing guard like heroic sentinels - they invariably gasp with wonder at the under-stated elegance of it all. Perhaps the rectangular design will surprise all the cutting-edge experts and outlast the upstart Buckminster Fuller spheres after all. They could continue to evoke a sense of the sublime for generations to come. Not that we can be sure. Zhou Enlai - when asked to make an assessment of the French Revolution - replied "It is too early to say."
It is the same with the prefabs.