IN PRAISE OF LONDON.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 11, 29 August 1911, Page 2

IN PRAISE OF LONDON.

So much is said and written in England in disparagement, of London’s architecture, that it is a positive relief to find a distinguished American architect speaking of, it with enthusiasm. “London is the greatest, the richest, the most dignified and the most beautiful city in the world, and her architecture proclaims that fact more convincingly than her history,” says Mr Arnold Brunner., who has been commissioned by the United States Government to design the new Foreign Office at Washington, which is to cost £BOO,OOO, and is to he the most magnificent structure of its kind in the world. Mr Brunner went over to Europe in quest of ideas, which he hoped to find as plentiful in London as anywhere else;' “1 have travelled in many countries and made many .sketches of beautiful huildingk, but I frankly confess that London beats the world for architecture, because it is so individual, so distinctly national in its expression. It tells the story of the strength and solidity of the British. Empire as nothing else does, for it reveals the character of the people from which that Empire has sprung.” He finds that. London is steadily growing more Leantiful ns streets and approaches are widened, arches and monuments erected, and vistas extended. The Thames Embankment is as fine an example of architectural landscape treatment as could he found anywhere, and the new Mali promises to he one of the most beautiful of avenues. The proposal of an American syndicate to build a “skyscraper” hotel at Hyde Park corner was brought under his notice. “It would be a crime. If you have any law to cover it, theauthorities should interfere and stop it. A skyscraper in London would bo an.abomination and a discord. In America, especially in Now York, the skyscraper was a necessity, but it has robbed our architecture of all oeanty.” The United States, however, will have something to be justly proud of when the scheme of a two:niJc avenue at Washington, Hanked by splendid departmental buildings set in trees, is completed, If the work is capably done, there will be nothing ike it in the world.