MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IT is with appreciation, but with some perplexity, that 1 have been reading the articles and letters recently devoted to the subject of Carlton House Terrace. My appreciation has been aroused by this proof that there are so many worthy citizens ,;of London who take an alert and combative interest in its architecture. It is to people like Lord Rosse and the Georgian Group that we largely owe the preservation of the Regent's Park , Terraces ; one's only regret is that they were not there to enter battle at the time when the Adclphi or the Quadrant was tumbled down. We are, I well know, not an urban-minded race ; • we prefer grass and trees to buildings ; and our parks, I readily admit, are without equal in the world. Yet it does seem strange to me that a civilised community such as ours should until now have been so indifferent to the appearance of our capital city ; and that we should quite recently have allowed Berkeley and St. James's Squares to be degraded into a jumble of buildings that possess neither congruity nor meaning. The sociologist will 'argue that the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century styles for London architecture were expressive of the needs of an economic ;order that has now disappeared ; and that it is fitting that trade should move westwards, even if that means that banks and estate- agents establish themselves in the mansions of Mayfair. Yet need these changes and movements be accompanied by complete devastation ? After all, the Place Vendome has also been entirely commercialised ; yet it still retains the majesty, and some even of the elegance, of its original function and design. Yet even when it becomes essential for us to remove an ancient building that has ceased, as the bureaucrats say, to serve a useful purpose, we might at least endeavour to impose some symmetry of design upon its successors. Can any Englishman hide his blushes when he introduces a foreigner to Parliament and Trafalgar Squares ? Or is it that we do not notice ? I can certainly recall the editor of a great London newspaper express- ing surprise when I told him that Trafalgar Square wasn't one. .11e had never noticed its asymmetry.
* * * * Yet the pleasure afforded me by the chorus of protests that has arisen around Carlton House Terrace is dimmed by the per- plexity aroused by so many noble voices shouting different things. I had always been taught that if one possesses a good case it is a mistake to spoil that case by adducing too many arguments in its favour. It is even more:of a mistake to accompany good arguments by a flock of had ones, since credit, dignity and con- viction are thereby impaired. - I have been shocked, for instance, to find so many ardent 'critics of M. Louis de Soissons's design asserting that, if these alterations are persisted in, the beautiful sky-line of Nash's composition will be destroyed. Surely that is nonsense, and for three reasons. That sky-line was already ruined when Sir Reginald- Blomfield was permitted to erect the Pinchin Johnson building. in Carlton Gardens. It is difficult, in any case, even in February, to get a clear view-of the sky-line, since so many sturdy trees intervene. And in the third place. even when one does catch a- glimPie:of the sky-line, one finds that it is an uglyisky-line,.a monstrous,' debilitated sky-line ; in fact, not a sky-litio at all, but a row: of attics dominated by all manner of chimney-pots and cowls. Again, there are few people who would really defend the north elevations of Nash's terrace.
If you look to the oast, your eye meets "a jumbled mews sur- mounted by a small and very ugly section of the Nelson Column. If one looks to the west, the prospect is equally confused. I doubt whether there is anything at all to be said for preserving Nash's northern elevation. * *-- * * •.* • I understand, howeve,_thaf the design will entail moving the northern frontage of Carlton House Terrace several feet in the direction of Pall Mall, and that the road is also to be widened. This will produce consequences abhorrent to any true London heart. It will mean that the happy southern windows of the Pall Mall clubs will be darkened by a mass of official masonry. It will mean that a slice will be cut off from the neat little garden now owned by the Crown Estates Paving Commission. Even more horribly, it will mean the destruction (" wanton destruc- tion " is the expression used) of no less than three thriving trees. And what will the Crown Estates Paving Commission (if they have been apprised of this threat) say to such depredations ? I should advise them, if they intend to protest, to confine their argument to the three trees. Nobody cares whether club-rooms are darkened or a strip of lawn cut off ; but they do care about trees. I should, in fact, advise all those who wish to prevent the consummation of this project not to say too much about the north frontage. They can have some fun, if they like, with the ramp that will burrow under the statue of King Edward VII, and even, it seems, under the Duke of York's Column itself. But, on the whole, the allies of Nash and the opponents of Soissons would be well advised to keep off the north elevation. If that alone were in question, we should all, I suppose, be perfectly pleased to see a clean clear cleavage effected, ending east and west in solid blocks of office windows. Only neurotics or club- men need object to that.
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Nash's great swagger composition fronting the Mall is wholly different ; it would assuredly be a misfortune if that were either destroyed or distorted beyond all meaning. Yet the opponents of the new scheme ought, I suggest, to concentrate their attack on the central position of the enemy and not waste their energies in flanking forays. One of the main points to be admitted is that, whatever Mr. Betjeman may say, one does not see the whole of Nash's composition, since it is obscured, or at least interrupted, by trees. When once the plane-trees that line the avenue have reached adult age they will create a high green hedge or barrier screening the Nash frontage from every casual glance. Even today the best spot from where to appreciate Nash's intention is from the bottom of the Duke of York's steps ; by looking to the right and left after leaving the steps one does obtain a magnificent perspective of Nash's Corinthian columns. Yet, as Mr. Lutyens has pointed out, the additions to be made by M. de Soissons will be totally invisible from that aspect, since they are set back as many as 78 feet from the line of the main colonnade. Mr. Alfred Bossom retorts that nobody ever looks at the middle of buildings ; it is their summits that attract the admiration of man. That is true of New York ; it is not true of London ; always some tree intervenes. I do not think, therefore, that a very good argument can be based on the examination of what one will see from where. The good, the overwhelming, argument is that you cannot, without falsification, change the whole pro- portions of an existing building. You may succeed with ingenuity In preserving the actual fabric of Nash's frontage ; but if at the same time you attach to it huge rectangles for bureaucrats, you are altering the whole meaning and intention and perpetrating an architectural sham. It is this great yellow lie splashed across the face of London that all men should resist.
In any case, the Foreign Office should be ashamed of itself for proliferating in this manner. When I was a lad that august institution possessed no more than seven or eight Departments ; now as many as fifty have been pupped. If the Foreign Office desires to house under one great roof its numerous pro- geny—its branches and its grades, its research officers, paper- keepers, communication departments, personnel departments and similar enormities—why not get busy with Parliament Square and erect a fine new building such as will be a credit to the hub of Empire and remove the shameful approach to West- minster Bridge ? There are so many streets and squares that demand destruction ; why choose our best ?
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