HUB OF THE WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 20024, 15 November 1928, Page 11

HUB OF THE WORLD

PICCADILLY CIRCUS TURNING POINT IN ITS CAREER Completion of tho famous quadrant in Regent street has made a problem of Piccadilly Circus. The “ hub of the world,” as the famous circus is known to all Londoners, has now been rebuilt on its west side, where the qnadr.in l and Piccadilly enter it, but the jumble of its east side still survives. Sir Reginald Blomfield is the architect who is responsible for the fine new buildings on the west side, and the London County Council is being urged to have him complete the new circus by drawing plans to which the, unregenerate east side can in time be rebuilt. _ There is no hope of being able to make of the new circus what Paris has rnado of tho Place de I’Opera. London’s rather dingy opera house is likely to remain In Covent Garden, surrounded by the sounds and smells of a fruit and vegetable market. It is hoped, however, that provision will be,made without delay for giving Piccadilly Circus a unity that it woefully lacks to-day and an architectural treatment more nearly 'worthy of its great prestige. It was bound to come, for the original circus has long been lost, ,A' circus is a round place at the intersection of streets, and the small original circus at the intersection of Piccadilly and Lower Regent street now forms only one corner of'the great triangle that is customarily referred' to as Piccadilly Circus. Nor is the present triangle mono than a step toward tho even larger Piccadilly Circus of the future. It is universally assumed that the future Piccadilly Circus will he a rectangle formed by carrying the line of the north side of the quadrant straight to Shaftesbury Avenue and cutting away most of the triangular island site on which the Pavilion Theatre now stands. This setting back and rebuilding of the east side will be the next and perhaps the final step in the evolution of Piccadilly Circus, A RECTANGULAR CIRCUS, The sites on which Sir Reginald Blomfield has been rebuilding on the west side aro Crown property, while most of the sites on the east side belong to the London County Council, has already put into drawings his ideas for the large rectangular circus of the future, rebuilding the east side to the architectural ideas employed on tho west side, aud making of the future circus a dignified architectural unity, FTo believes, indeed that the famous quadrant in Regent street could find an answer in a similar quadrantal curve at the foot of Shaftesbury Avenue. Nash's old quadrant in Regent street has, of course, entirely disappeared. Modern site values and traffic considerations have banished Nash and all his ideas