London County Council from its position as a traffic authority. But the L. C. C. is already overweighted. It can only cope with its duties by delegation to committees whose decisions the Council, as a whole, merely exists to ratify. Even then it is frequently unable to get through its agenda. London is now so vast that the time is fast arriving, if it has not already arrived, when each of the various branches of municipal activity will need to be administered by a separate Council. We have the Metropolitan Water Board, the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and the Port of London Authority. In time we shall need a Road Authority, a Sewerage Board, an Education Council, a Transport Authority, and so on. It seems to us, then, that the London County Council should be reconstituted as a supreme body to watch, supervise, and co-ordinate the activities of the other specialist bodies. That would give the Council both the time and opportunity for that broad view of the development and administration of the Metropolis which its present restricted powers, and the multifarious details of its present duties, do not permit.
The design and Industries Association, in response to a widely-expressed demand, have reprinted a revised edition of the lecture on the principles of design, entitled “Right Making, ” which Mr. B. J. Fletcher, Director of the Birmingham Municipal Art Schools, delivered at the London School of Economics in January, 1925. The re-issue of Mr. Fletcher’s extremely lucid exposition of the text, “fit
ness for purpose, ” in its application to applied art, pointed as it is by a number of convincing illustrations, is much to be commended. It forms an excellent first lesson for craft workers, as well as a guide
and warning to the laity who may buy their productions, and to quote extensively from it, as one is tempted to do, would be unfair. Copies can, however, be obtained from the Association, 6 Queen Square, London, W. C. 1, at the modest price of 6d. each.
The Home Office has issued a Report, by Sir William Warrender Mackenzie, G. B. E., K. C., on the Draft Regulations under the Lead Paint (Protection against Poisoning) Act, 1926, for preventing danger from lead paint to persons employed in, or in connection with, the painting of buildings. The Report, price 3d. net, can be obtained from H. M. Stationery Office, Adastral House, Kingsway, London, W. C. l. It may be remembered that this Act takes a middle line in that, while not entirely prohibiting (like the Geneva Convention) the use of lead compounds as a base for paint used in internal painting work, it seeks, by the issue of a rigid code of regulations, to eliminate the dangers involved in such use. Internal painting, under the Act, includes internal fixtures. A Code of Regulations applicable to the painting of vehicles has already been enforced as from May 1 last year. The present draft code is applicable to buildings, and has been devised to suppress lead dust and to prevent or minimise the absorption of lead into the system
by enforcing cleanliness and care. The draft regulations, agreed to by most of the various parties interested, were opposed by employers in the engineering, shipbuilding and structural engineering trades and by the railway companies on the ground that rubbingdown by a wet process, as enforced under the regulations, cannot be applied to the cleaning of metal work before repainting. Sir William Mackenzie, after hearing the objections raised on this and one or two other points, recommends certain amendments, which are incorporated in a revised draft code forming Appendix E of the Report.
The Countryman, a bright little quarterly, edited and published by Mr. J. W. Robertson Scott at Idbury, Kingham, Oxford, deals with every phase of rural life and activity in a chatty and interesting manner, and should tempt the townsman to glean from its pages a better understanding of a side of his country that, most regrettably, is often entirely
foreign to him. Matters agricultural are, of course, outside our purview, but the third number, just published, gives particulars, with views before and after, of the reparation of a small Cotswold house of the seventeenth century, also an adjacent cottage. The house, practically a ruin and almost obscured by ivy, was reputed to have been derelict for fifty years, but contained a quantity of oak panelling as well as an oak roof. Indeed, the oak in the roof, ‘‘estimated to be worth £400, ” appears to have been the principal factor in determining the purchase price of £500 which the former owner set upon “the ruins. ” The new owners are to be congratulated alike upon their discovery and their appreciation of its possibilities; and their fortune seems to have held good even to the possession of an architect friend of conservative tendencies, and to securing the services of an enthusiastic local builder of the old school. Their account of this piece of rescue work and its cost — far less than that of a hew dwelling — should prove interesting reading to other members of the laity who contemplate rural settlement.
The Norwich War Memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, R. A., which has been erected in front of the Guildhall, overlooking the Market Place, was unveiled last Sunday by Private J. A. Withers, a disabled ex- Service man of the city, whose name was selected by lot from a list of names submitted by ex-Serviee organisations. The memorial consists of a monolith altar stone, approached by steps, and behind it is a polium wall surmounted by a cenotaph, into which has been built a copper vase containing the names of all the Norwich citizens who fell in the war.
A memorial to the late Sir Whitworth Wallis, the first keeper of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, was unveiled at the gallery last week by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham. The memorial takes the form of a tablet and a portrait of Sir Whatworth Wallis by Mr. Joseph Southall.
JUST UNCOVERED IN THE CITY. PORTION OP THE NEW MIDLAND BANK OFFICE, POULTRY, BY MESSRS. GOTCH AND SAUNDERS IN ASSOCIATION WITH
SIR EDWIN LUTYENS, Architects.
The design and Industries Association, in response to a widely-expressed demand, have reprinted a revised edition of the lecture on the principles of design, entitled “Right Making, ” which Mr. B. J. Fletcher, Director of the Birmingham Municipal Art Schools, delivered at the London School of Economics in January, 1925. The re-issue of Mr. Fletcher’s extremely lucid exposition of the text, “fit
ness for purpose, ” in its application to applied art, pointed as it is by a number of convincing illustrations, is much to be commended. It forms an excellent first lesson for craft workers, as well as a guide
and warning to the laity who may buy their productions, and to quote extensively from it, as one is tempted to do, would be unfair. Copies can, however, be obtained from the Association, 6 Queen Square, London, W. C. 1, at the modest price of 6d. each.
The Home Office has issued a Report, by Sir William Warrender Mackenzie, G. B. E., K. C., on the Draft Regulations under the Lead Paint (Protection against Poisoning) Act, 1926, for preventing danger from lead paint to persons employed in, or in connection with, the painting of buildings. The Report, price 3d. net, can be obtained from H. M. Stationery Office, Adastral House, Kingsway, London, W. C. l. It may be remembered that this Act takes a middle line in that, while not entirely prohibiting (like the Geneva Convention) the use of lead compounds as a base for paint used in internal painting work, it seeks, by the issue of a rigid code of regulations, to eliminate the dangers involved in such use. Internal painting, under the Act, includes internal fixtures. A Code of Regulations applicable to the painting of vehicles has already been enforced as from May 1 last year. The present draft code is applicable to buildings, and has been devised to suppress lead dust and to prevent or minimise the absorption of lead into the system
by enforcing cleanliness and care. The draft regulations, agreed to by most of the various parties interested, were opposed by employers in the engineering, shipbuilding and structural engineering trades and by the railway companies on the ground that rubbingdown by a wet process, as enforced under the regulations, cannot be applied to the cleaning of metal work before repainting. Sir William Mackenzie, after hearing the objections raised on this and one or two other points, recommends certain amendments, which are incorporated in a revised draft code forming Appendix E of the Report.
The Countryman, a bright little quarterly, edited and published by Mr. J. W. Robertson Scott at Idbury, Kingham, Oxford, deals with every phase of rural life and activity in a chatty and interesting manner, and should tempt the townsman to glean from its pages a better understanding of a side of his country that, most regrettably, is often entirely
foreign to him. Matters agricultural are, of course, outside our purview, but the third number, just published, gives particulars, with views before and after, of the reparation of a small Cotswold house of the seventeenth century, also an adjacent cottage. The house, practically a ruin and almost obscured by ivy, was reputed to have been derelict for fifty years, but contained a quantity of oak panelling as well as an oak roof. Indeed, the oak in the roof, ‘‘estimated to be worth £400, ” appears to have been the principal factor in determining the purchase price of £500 which the former owner set upon “the ruins. ” The new owners are to be congratulated alike upon their discovery and their appreciation of its possibilities; and their fortune seems to have held good even to the possession of an architect friend of conservative tendencies, and to securing the services of an enthusiastic local builder of the old school. Their account of this piece of rescue work and its cost — far less than that of a hew dwelling — should prove interesting reading to other members of the laity who contemplate rural settlement.
The Norwich War Memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, R. A., which has been erected in front of the Guildhall, overlooking the Market Place, was unveiled last Sunday by Private J. A. Withers, a disabled ex- Service man of the city, whose name was selected by lot from a list of names submitted by ex-Serviee organisations. The memorial consists of a monolith altar stone, approached by steps, and behind it is a polium wall surmounted by a cenotaph, into which has been built a copper vase containing the names of all the Norwich citizens who fell in the war.
A memorial to the late Sir Whitworth Wallis, the first keeper of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, was unveiled at the gallery last week by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham. The memorial takes the form of a tablet and a portrait of Sir Whatworth Wallis by Mr. Joseph Southall.
JUST UNCOVERED IN THE CITY. PORTION OP THE NEW MIDLAND BANK OFFICE, POULTRY, BY MESSRS. GOTCH AND SAUNDERS IN ASSOCIATION WITH
SIR EDWIN LUTYENS, Architects.