A) Read the text and say whether you agree with the author. Which of the styles mentioned in the letter are typical of your native town?

TEXT ID

IMPRESSIONS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE (A LETTER FROM ENGLAND)

1. You ask what I think of modern architecture. I don't know very much about modem architecture in Europe, but styles are probably similar in most countries today. I think this is because now architects have no opportunities they had in the past. They are seldom asked to design buildings like wonderful churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Architects today have to design schools, hospitals and huge blocks of flats and offices. If they are asked to make plans for houses, these are usually all alike or nearly alike.

2. Boxes - that's what a good deal of modern architecture reminds me of. The blocks of flats in our big towns are huge boxes, whether the fronts and sides are square or oblong A man who lives in one of these boxes works in another big box, high up in the air. If he falls ill, he goes to another big box called a hospital.

3. Architects have done some very good work in designing new schools. Many of these are prefabricated, which means that as much of the building work as possible is done not on the building site, but in factories where mass production methods can be used. The parts are taken to a site and put together there. Children who attend the best of these new schools are very happy. Their classrooms are light and big, and they have a fine large assembly hall. The children have dinner at school, and there is a dining-hal! completed with modem kitchen

4 I began this letter by saying that many modem buildings, especially the blocks of flats and business offices, were like big boxes. They do look like boxes from the outside, but when we go inside, we find them very well planned for their purposes An architect today has to be an engineer too. The best modem buildings help us to live and work in comfort. They save plenty of unnecessary work. There is central heating, for example, instead of the dusty open fires we used to have, with coal to be carried up long stairs and ashes to be carried down.

5. I have given my opinion on what I have seen in England. I know a lot of interesting work has been done in Scandinavia, and, of course, I've read about the work of Le Corbusier m France and I'd like to see what American architects are doing now. You may know the work of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. He designed the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. It was designed to resist earthquakes and it proved so strong that it did. It was

one of the few buildings in Tokyo that did not fall in the terrible earthquake of 1923.

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ORAL PRACTICE	\|	B) Write the summary of the text in Russian.

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