Badly Designed London.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7755, 6 March 1905, Page 2

Badly Designed London.

Speaking before the Society of Arts (says the Daily Mail) Mr T. G. Jackson, R.A., had many hard things to say with regard to our London architecture. I Hyde Park corner he described as a I j" shapeless expanse, a wilderness of]' irregular roads, dangerous to cross, ' in the midst of which float three j island refuges of various shapes, with ' a statue that seems to have lost its ' .way." < Piccadilly circus he considered a < still worse failure, "an amorphous ' space, with the relics of the old cir- i cus on one side and nothing definite ! elsewhere, a mere accidental clearing ', in the midtlle of houses, where Mr I I Gilbert's fountain seemsi to float in i space without any relation to its : j situation." I Tho crucial difliculty of street ', architecture Mr Jackson considered ' to be the shop window. "In this age of display and self-advertise-ment," he said, " when commercial modesty seems to have fled like As- , trca to the heavens, it is thought necessary to abolish the front wall of the ground floor and substitute huge sheets of plate gglass, behind | which the wares can be displayed in • lavish profusion. So long as the I building appears to be supported on I the edge of its plate glass shop front its architectural redemption is Ipast hoping for." I Streets should be beautiful and inItetesting, and so disposed as to show oil their buildings to advantage and '■ ,to preserve faithfully their Historical I traditions.