Urban Designers Stress Need for Public Relations

Several Urban Designers yesterday stressed the failure of most Universities to prepare students in the public relations of Urban Design.

Only in the last few years and only at Harvard and M.I.T. has any real progress been made toward correcting this situation, Lloyd Rodwin, professor of Land Economics at M.I.T. told more than 400 architects, city planners, and landscape architects attending the second day of the Urban Design Conference, here.

Gyorgy Kepes, professor of Design at M.I.T., emphasized the designer's difficulties in guiding and molding public taste while planning or replanning a city. Public education is an integral part of any design problem, he asserted.

The Design School's work in this field was described by Reginald R. Isaacs, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning.

Jose L. Sert, Dean of the Faculty of Design, praised the report of the Committee on Visual Arts, in his speech closing the Conference. He said the suggestions, including introduction of a design department into the college and a fine arts course into the General Education program, would help individual thinking in the modern world of three dimensions.

Jane Jacobs, staff member of Architectural Forum, discussed the need for small "holes in the wall" as informal centers of an urban area.