23 NOVEMBER 1912, Page 3

The death of Mr. Norman Shaw, R.A., in his eighty-first

year, has removed the most outstanding of British architects. An artist of great originality and independence, he had few opportunities of showing his capacity as a designer of public buildings, but the New Seodand Yard—which Lord Salisbury in-one of his eiserasteristic flouts described as the red house on the Basbanhesent—schoweel his greatness, while his experi- ment in the taadrant proved the unaccommodating quality of his genius. lie was a great draughtsman and an admirable though infreeaent speaker ; he showed his public spirit by his valuable Inlaid assistance as adviser to the County Council and his generosity by asking, white still capable of his best work, to be placed on the retired list of R.A.'s in order to give a chance to the younger man. It is interesting to know that in. his view London needed a Haussmann to counteract the incohereace of individualism. But the competitive system is fatal to the emergence of an enlightened despot, and Mr. Norman Shaw devoted himself to domestic architecture, on which he left an abiding mark.