Extracts.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 447, 14 February 1857, Page 4

Extracts.

-OP PUBLIC OFFICES.

PALACJE OF ADMINISTRATION. Her Majesty's Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings have determined to concentrate the principal Grov«rmneat Offices somewhere between Whitehall -and /the New Palace afc Westminister, and they have invited the architects of all countries to send -in designs. The Commissioners at the same time are ready to receive two 'designs' in furtherance of the ' •scheme of concentration—one, a building for" the department of the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs, and the other for the Secretary, of State for War. These edifi«es will he on a •scale which will permit of the utmost dispiay^ of palatial magnificence, and the premiums offered i'ur" the seven best designs for each building-will jiro-ljably eagage the highest order of architectural genius in Europe, combined, as it vriill foe, with the hope of being appointed to Superintend the execution of the one that is successful. The first premium is to be1 £800; tlio second, £500; .the ihird, £300; the fourth', £200 j and for the fifth, sixth, and seventh «iftsigfis in order of men „' £100 each "will be -warded. Thus there will be devoted to the oneourageraent of architectural talent a sum of .1:2,100, or, for the ForeSgK Office ashcL the Office of the War Dep'artmeait, £4,200 for designs sikiae; and for the concentration scheme thi'ee premiums amounting altogether to £800. In the Foreign Office there will be' some 140 -ipartmenis. - Three rooms, each thirty feet wide, and respectively "twenty,, ihirtv, and seventy feet dn leEgth, are to be appropriated to the Library. The official residence of tIK) Secretary is to have ail the yequii-eraents of a tivfoleman's town-house.' There are to five re'■<*i#tioß rooms, en-wite, on the Ifirst floor, toxic-''"lftTE-odate 1.000 'is'tors. ibi T>be •ba'M:ngto be approrpnata^ ito the P^-crtitary of State for War, there will be no ■^.vtu" than. 'S-IO rooms. 'Tn this edifice there wili be I seated aii tho depai*tuieuts wbicb pertain

to the organization of the military, strength of the country—an advantage of immense "importance for accelerating the dispatch of business It will be instructive and interesting.to many readers just to' enumerate a few of the chief departments which /will have, their offieei's under the same roof.as the Secretary, of State; for War: —InspectorrGeneral of Fortifications, Deputy-Inspector-General, iDirector-General of Artillery, Naval Director-General of Artillery, DirectorGeneral of Clothing, Director-General Army Medical Department, Director-General of Stores, Military Superintendent of Pensioners, , Clerk of Ordnance, the Under Secretaries, the Deputy-Secretary, Director-General of Contractsj Judge-Advocate-General, ChaplainGeneral, Director-General of. the Commissariat, Accountant-General, Topographical Department, each with a staff of clerks. What an extraordinary power will this concentration give to an energetic Secretary of State for War in carrying out the decisions of the Cabinet! In the suite of rooms'specially appropriated to his use there Is an apartment intended to be;' used for Cabinet councils. The Ministers came to a decision, and the Secretary of State can instantly apprise the heads of all the departments which wield the warlike -powers of England of the duties required from them, and instantly what a prodigious series of operations would be actually commenced to combine the will of the Government in one great national result. The wires of the electric telegraph will be carried into the building, so that orders may be transmitted to every part of the United Kingdom as easily as to the remotest office in the edifice where the chief of the War Department is installed. We have given above a specimen of what may be effected by the concentration, of the business'" of one branch of public service in a. single building, but the scheme of the Commissioners of Public Works , contemplates a general agglomeration of all the public.offices between Whitehall and the New Palace of Westminster. There are the Treasury (with official residences for the' Prime Minister aiid the Chancellor of the Exchequer),' tlie ■ Colonial Office, the" Home Office, the Admiralty, and fourteen other great departments. What a • dream of architectural glory and magnificence the notion inspires! To gain an appropriate site, it has been suggested that the Park should be Drought down,to the tank of the river, that' every building that stands between the Park and the river should be pulled down, that the road from Charingcross to the new bridge at Westminster should form a boulevard lined with trees, and that, instead of establishing the public departments in separate buildings, a palace of administration, consisting of one grand and indivisable whole, should arise, with its front to the Thames, at an appropriate distance from the river. At the south-eastern boundary would be the Abbey and the new palace,of Parliament, in front the Boulevard; on the west the park stretching to Kensington 9 on the south the terraces on the Thames; and if " the finest site in Europe" is ever worthily occupied, the effect would be one of unparalleled splendour and beauty. We may ask if all this be a dream, or if it is a plan capable of "being soberly realized ? Let it be, at any rate, fairly taken into consideration in a business-like manner, but with a' due appreciation of what an enlightened nation and a wealthy, nation owes to magnificence of design in its public edifices and public places.— Era, Oct. 12th