ARCHITECTURAL FASHIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 9, 11 January 1912, Page 2

ARCHITECTURAL FASHIONS.

lO THE EDITOB. Sir,— ls it not something moie than a pity that our local authorities, and even Government departments, are adopting, for some, at least, of their public buildings, the prevailing architectural fashion —it cannot be called a style— known, I believe, as the Early English or Quaint, but which would be more properly designated the Late Lunatio or Grotesque. It needs but a little reflection to perceive the yery ephemeral character of this clasa of design, which could bo only a transition, if ifc W pre not, indeed, an aberration; as inartistio and relatively as transient .as the "hobble" ekirt. ' Indeed, there is the same quality of fomlnimtyt in both. , The pathetically _ artificial simplicity, the sham construction, the disingenuous picturesqueness, tho painfully studied wrong-headednees of the whole style mark it as but the unhealthy product of a,temporary condition of hyper-sophistication and morbid Belf-coneciousness, and it would be topelew pessimism not to believe that in a few short years tho' general feeling towards it will be ohe of contempt, if not shame, followed by a far* vent and wholesome desire to wipe every sign of it out of existence.— l am, etc., *, ... ' X.Y.Z. Wellington, 9th January, 1912.