THE NEW WHITEHALL.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19900, 1 June 1936, Page 4

THE NEW WHITEHALL.

GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS.I CHANGE IN LONDON SKYLINE. E E" LONDON, April 7. fl! ’ Designs have now been approved} by the Cabinet for the new £1,760.- 1 000 block oi: Government omces in l ‘Vhitehail, London. It will be one of ' the largest in the world. The demoli- { tion of Whitehall Gardens, to make room lfor the new buildings, will be- I gin early next year. In these gardens { are situated the British Cabinet ? Secretariat Ofllec, the Committee of , Imperial Defence, and also the of- ! flee of the Australian Liaison Of. 5 deer with the Foreign Office. 1 The first section to house the‘ Air Ministry, will be finished in 1940 or 1941. The whole scheme will be completed in 1945 or 19'“. Other Ministries to be housed in the 5 new oifices‘are the Ministry of Lab- i our, the Board of Trade. and the 3 Ministry of Pensions. The buildins i will cover the rectangular space be- : tween Whitehall. Horse Guards Avenue, Richmond Terrace. and the Victoria. Embankment. Its main features are accommodation for 5360 civil servants. a total floor area of nearlv 16 acres. and an underground scrvlce yard reached by an inclined road from Horse Guards Avenue, for delivery of supplies. The new building will consist oi a single block, with three large internal courts. There will be two main facades. one facing Whitehall and one facing the Embankment. Each will contain eight main storys above the basement. reaching a total heizht of 87 feet. There wlll be an additional upper story, set back 10 feet and rising a further 6 feet. In each of the four transverse blocks, there will be 11 atorys. They will reach a height'of 128 feet to the ridges of the roofs. Each. will be considerably hiaher than any other building visible from Whitehall, except the Victoria and clock towers of the Houses of Parliament. Apart from these. the hia'hest at present is New Scotland Yard. 108 feet. London‘s skyline. seen from the river, will be drastically changed by the new building. By setting the bleak back some distance from Whitehall. the architect. Mr E. Vincent Harris. hopes to prevent the Inizo Jones Banqueting House, the Royal United Sewices Institution. and Gwydyr House from ap—pearinz unduly dwarfed. Commentinz on these plants, the Times declares that it is clearlv too late now to wonder whether it is indeed necessary in the era of tele—phone and motor-car to crowd all these omces into the most auxuat and not the least costly part of the capital. “For the loss of existing building,” it continues, “we may be thankful that it is no Worse. When once a private mansion has been I turned into public omces. it has lost f the integrity of its beauty. White-) hall Gardens, Montague House. Richmond Terrace have not beenl themselves. inside or outside, furl many a year, and their surro ~ndings | show it. Let them perish to—morrow ! or‘a few years hence, the spirit of : them is lost already. The new build- | ing will be nearly twice as high as g Gwydyr House, and more than half l as high again as the Banquetingi Hall. And it it should browbeatl these, and dwarf the Cenotaph, and ' perhaps interrupt the view of the 1 Houses of Parliament, not even . superlative beauty of its own. irre-g concilable with that of its neigh-I hours. will set it on its test again.” i