2 AUGUST 1856, Page 15

PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN WESTMINSTER.

Bra Cus vies TREVELYAN has the merit of having proposed the best plan yet devised for the improvement of the centre of Westminster. He not only lays down the principles of a good plan, sketches the picture of a magnificent district for the Metro- polis, but also devises the principles on which it would be safe for the Government to proceed. He reconciles our divided authority with the requisite concentration of responsibility, and suggests a method for bringing out the best designs, with the surest possible guarantees for blocking out bad designs or bad administrations ; and he avails himself in the largest degree of existing resources. We have not thought well of every act of Sir Charles Trevelyan, but we must accord to him the merit of a pertinacious will and a power of seeing combinations beforehand—qualities eminently desirable in the present instance. Should his plan be carried out, the district which has Charing Cross and Westminster Abbey for its two ends, with the Thames on the one side and the Park on the other, would be thoroughly remodelled. We should have first, on the right hand, the Admiralty Department, the present build- ing receiving a new face towards the Park ; and on the North of that building would lie an open entrance into the Park. To the left, the space immediately below Whitehall Place would be opened, and Inigo Jones's palace would be carried out by the addition of three sides, with fronts towards Charing Cross, the river, and the Parliament Palace : here the Military Departments would be lodged. Again, the new Public Offices at Downing Street would be continued in a vast quadrangle, with three new sides, fronting the Park, the Abbey, and the pre- sent site of Parliament Street ; and in this quadrangle the Civil Departments would find an abode. The -Horse Guards would be removed, and all the buildings between the new Civil Departments and the river. Thus the whole of the space between Abingdon Street, Charing Cross, the Park, and the Thames, would be occupied by the Parliament Palace, Westmin- ster Abbey, the Civil Service Departments, the Admiralty, and the War Department, with a broad " place " flanking the river, and two fine openings into the Park, from which would be seen that beautiful front of Tnigo Jones's public building which is now masked by Vanbrugh's least happy work, the Horse Guards. The plan would evacuate Somerset House, leaving it for offices con- nected with the Courts of Law, which a previous scheme had provided for building near Temple Bar. The series of works would be completed by a railway along the banks of the river, connecting the Houses of Parliament, the Public Offices, with the Law Courts and the City ; and an electric telegraph would virtually place the whole of those vast departments of the state within the reach of instant conversation. In simplicity and greatness this design excels all that have yet been laid before the public for the same district.

Workmen would be required to carry out the details. We all know how details are carried out by our "responsible Govern- ment"; the result of which is to make each person engaged feel a minimum of responsibility, under the certainty that he can lay the responsibility upon anybody else. Here again Sir Charles presents us with a design at once comprehensive and simple. He would make the first Commissioner of Public Works personally answerable. We have already: remarked that a higher grade should be given to that office ; here is an employment for it which would. necessarily raise its rank, and call to its head the best man that could be found—not a dilettante, although conversant with art, but a regular man of business accustomed to official con- trol, With full power of exercising it. The first person that we think of for such a post--which is not a party post—is the Duke of Somerset. It needs a master who could encourage the Barrys, the Petos, and the Stephensons, and yet control them ; who could cheer them, and yet not pamper them into mutiny. Sir Charles Trevelyan proposes that such a Minister should be aided by a Committee, and that he should constantly report his proceedings to Parliament. This presents a very effectual machinery for the purpose.

The suggestion with respect to the designs is also excellent, although it appears to us that an addition may be made. Sir Charles proposes that specifications of the several buildings should be published, and the architects of the country should be invited to send in plans and elevations ; these plans to be exposed for public view, and the selection to be made after full discussion and mature deliberation. This is good. The Minister, however, ought to have full power—and he ought beforehand to stipulate for it— to select any of those designs or parts of the designs ; giving to the artist proper remuneration. It should be open to him to in- vite a second competition upon more restricted conditions, sug- gested by the first. It should also be open to him to employ the successful architects in the work, or to employ other architects, and to dismiss any persons so employed during the progress of the buildings. It is one thing to continue an efficient artist at his task, and another to constitute a professional man a virtually irremoveable Minister of Public Works. We have seen too much of that recently, and should not place the whole of Westminster under a single architectural dictator.