REBUILDING OF LONDON.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1614, 4 December 1912, Page 10

REBUILDING OF LONDON.

. ibSS . AND GAIN. "A great city never is, but always to.be, built; and London, beyond all other great cities, is a - prcof of this," writes 13. Bereslord Chancellor ill tho "Fortnightly Review." "On whatever side we look we find evidence of a rebuilding that, were it not for the apparent ability of certain landmarks to uefy the'gnawing tooth of Time, would seem to threaten a complete reconstruction .of the outlines of the metropolis. In a large and thickly populated area like that covered by London, periodical phases of building activity are to be expected as nccessary concomitants of civic life. The decay attendant oil all works cf human agency, the ever-chang-ing conditions of existence, an enlarged conception of the architectural requirements of a great city, the ver,y falling in of leases, make such undertakings inevitable. ~, , "On the whole, I.think that, although what is inevitably being destroyed cannot bo replaced, and although it is sad to see points of interest going the way that all bricks and mortar must sooner or later go, wo aro likely to be the gamers in so many respects that we may feel our antiquarian patriotism safe ■ even when wo submit to tho changes that the years bring in their course. "What has .been done in this direction during the last few years lias been tho more marked because public attention lias been, and is being, .perpetually drawn to the matter by the writers of. innumerable books on London and its disappearing landmarks, and because certain societies have'..laboured strenuously to preserve, and, if incapable of preserving, duly to.record, the outlines of w;kat is passing daily from" us. The. curious thing is that although so much is written on what is vanishing,, relatively • littleexcept, perhaps, in technical journalsis attempted in the way .of' drawing attention to what is being set lip... In this respect the topographical, works concerned with London-in the : twentieth, century/ differ largely from those which appeared during the early years of . the nineteenth, when books on ' metropolitan improvements, as they, were euphemistically..termed were as the,sands oi the sea in Bumi ber. ' . ■ "The process of London's reconstruction —for it is'.little less—as. it i&-being carried on to-day, falls 'under .three heads. In the first place, there is th?..<!estri>ction of old buildings; in the second,, the erection of new ones, in some cases a rebuild- ■ ing, on ampler lines, of what has been demolished; in the third, the wholesale re-development, as it may be termed, of large areas. ; , r Ll . , , . "What have we m place of this wholesale demolition ? If we look around us I think we - cannot but admit that, although we ' have lost much- i)v picturesqueness. and, as it were, the outer semblance of historic tradition, we have gained much in an improved condition of daily life and in dignified architectural achievement." .