SOME CONCRETE EXAMPLES
There are only two of these buildings which can be seen as they were envisaged by the architect : and they are the National Provincial Bank, opposite the Mansion House and Lloyds Head Office in Cornhill. The architect of the former has taken full advantage of the dominating position of this site, and has produced a bold mass, very effective when seen at a distance, but a little disappoint- ing as to the detail when closely scrutinised. Lloyds, an equally bold, though more conventional conception, to my mind has a base which lacks the amount of detail necessary properly to balance the richness of the Corin- thian order above, and due to its plainness appears to occupy too great a height in relation to the rest of the façade. The Westminster Bank is delightful in detail, and the views one obtains from various points of a narrow section of it are very charming : it is impossible from the street to view it en masse, and I have an impression that the architect, realizing this, has concentrated—quite rightly—on those portions of which a distinct view can be obtained.
Of the Midland Bank it is difficult, to write without a personal bias. The Princes Street front -is complete, but due to the narrowness of the street the intrinsic value of its composition is lost, due to the angle of the perspective from which it is viewed, the depth of the reveals to the openings being over-emphasized and the voids lost, leaving the impression of too great a mass of stonework. The Poultry front, even in its present half-finished state, enables one to appreciate the strength and originality of the composition ; and inspires one to believe that the building, when finished, will wring reluctant praise from the pen of the most advanced modernist.
The Bank of England is also at a stage of its reconstrue- tion when comments are scarcely justifiable, though from those portions which are complete I get an impression that the massing will be very effective, but that the character of the new work is not quite in harmony with that of the old screen wall.
Hambro's Bank is an able attempt to produce a City bank in brick.
A great deal of the interior treatment of these buildings, excepting of course the banking hall, is seen by very few persons, which is natural but rigrettable, as there is a lot of interesting detail in panelling, plaster, furniture, &c:, most of which is reminiscent• of the best work of the eighteenth century. There are some large banks in the provincial cities, such as Martin's Head Office at Liverpool, and this building is distinctly.less traditional than those to which I have referred above, but the competition for the new Municipal Bank at Birmingham reveals a general tendency towards conservatism in Bank designing, and personally I think that any advanced type of modernism in design is not suitable for buildings of this character.
LALTRENCE M. GOTCH,
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