British Architecture.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 307, 31 December 1904, Page 2

British Architecture.

MORAL EFFECT OF MEAN STUEETS,

Before a distinguished company Mr John Belcher, A.H.A., delivered tho opening addrosa of the session of tho Royial Institute of Brltisli Architects at London last month. Mr Belcher congratulated tho Institute lhat during Uuo post session an efficient ."Board ot Architcctual Education"was established. Another causa for congratulation was the growing interest ol the public in architecture—an interest evidenced in a variety ot ways. If legislation was necessary on sajn'ntary matters that tho public might be protected fivim insidious poisons conveyed through the senses of smell and taste and touch, might it not be equally important to protect tho sight ? The squalid conditions, lionid forms, inharmonious colours, and injurious sights amongst which such a proportion of our urban population spent tlioir lives, contributed their <juo-t u to the sum total of degenerate moral tendencies of which recurring acts of crime were tho inevitable outcome. If gloomy and monotonous environment bo bad, what sihould they say or think about tho cumulative moral effect of those wildernesses of mean streets and horrid building* by wihich our great rities wwo disfigured. Artistic needs must Ik insisted upon, more particuJanly where considerations of finance wero likely to exercise an unduo S j? s ' At Conan Boyle, in his address to tiu Incorporated Society of Authors, while recognising the desirability, even the necessity, o/ a strain of artistic blood in the body corporate ol the London County Council, did not seem very sanguine, for ho calculated it would take a man with tho talent of Miohael Anr,/1nH 1 V"r iC I " >Ul ' r of Napoleon . UIM| t'le all-round energy of tho this* c'if to make this city of mean strrots and of tho Minmonptaw lo be what it W--a fitting centre of the greatest kmpiro that the world had ever seen *o iloulrt tho qualities g 0 tS ly epitonvised would prove advantacoml p !"!$ IIW C ln »«<■ Erection if ing C r""! ssio " t ''- of Works, actaid of 'n ' ,"' Fin# Art wI «» possessed (1, 'sory committee, LtoZ Z'IZT"' y d^",Uc nrf rp. n fiht pronoswls adonf* awo dZer iv°!;: Ce of , Considcr - : SSSS&tXfATSi Or to «„w f , o(