Death and the Penguin

I have, in various places, garnered perhaps more theoretical mileage from the replacement of the Penguins in London zoo from their Lubetkin-designed Constructivist environment (wherein they are being chased above by none other than Walt Disney) than would perhaps be considered advisable. So it's wonderful to find confirmation that in the sphere of Penguins as in that of the Proletariat, it's bureaucratic negligence rather than an innate reactionary nature that leads to dissatisfaction with a Modernist environment. Viz, from The Guardian:



Steve Rose includes in his selection of "unloved award winners" my father's penguin pool at London Zoo. I was astonished to read that "nobody thought to ask the penguins" about the design. My father steeped himself in literature about penguins; he consulted the specialists at the zoo itself, as well as Julian Huxley, Solly Zuckerman and other authorities.
If the current zoo authorities had time to consult the archives that I hope are still in their possession, they would see that when the first penguins were moved into their new home, they settled and bred successfully - a sure sign that they were happy with their surroundings. Indeed, when the penguin pool was refurbished in 1988, and the penguins were temporarily moved, they stopped breeding, only to resume when moved back into their pool. Now, alas, there are no penguins in the pool, because the zoo put burrowing penguins in the enclosure - and found, unsurprisingly, that they were unhappy there.
Sasha Lubetkin
Bristol