Vol. CXVIII — 3060
The ARCHITECT & BUILDING NEWS
August 12, 1927
Proprietors: Gilbert Wood & Co., Ltd.
Managing Director: William L. Wood
Editorial, Publishing and Advertisement Offices:
Rolls House, 2 Breams Buildings, London, E. C. 4. Tel.: Holborn 5708 Registered Office: Imperial Buildings, Ludgate Circus, London, E. C. 4
Principal Contents
Notes and Comments...................................................... page 257, 258 Competition Result...................................................................... 258 Competition Closing Date........................................................... 258 An Important Competition Precedent (Illustration).................. 259, 260 Proposed Masonic Temple, Cowbridge, Glamorgan
(Illustrations)........................................................................ 261 Wren Vignettes: I. — The Dome, Ball and Cross of
St. Paul’s (Illustration)..................................................... 262 263 New Premises in Fenchurch Street, E. C. (Illustration)................ 264
Professional Societies ............................................................. 264, 265 National Library for the Blind, Tufton Street, S. W.
(Illustration)......................................................................... 265 Grey Roofs, Theydon Bois, Essex (Illustrations)................... 266, 267 Correspondence: The Geneva Competition................................... 268 Proposed Open-air Bathing Lake, Princes Park,
Southport (Illustrations)..................................................269
Coming Events..........................................................................269 The Architecture of Exuberances (Illustrations)..................... 270-273 Modern Practice: II. —Exposing the Aggregate in
Concrete...........................................................................274 New Ways and Means (Illustrations)......................................... 275
Architectural Design in Concrete (Illustrations)..................... 276-278 Book Reviews...........................................................................278 London Building Notes.........................................................280 The Week’s Building News............................................... 280, 282 Building Contracts Open.........................................................284 Building Tenders..................................................... 284, 288 Current Market Prices............................................ 286, 288 Current Measured Rates..................................................... 290, 292 Building Wage Grades.............................................................. 294
Notes and Comments
After the recent collapse of a house in the West End whilst it was being underpinned, we have now to record a failure in the City, where the western bay of the Commercial Assurance Building fell into the excavated site destined for the new Lloyds Bank head office in Cornhill. The excavation had been carried down about 18 feet below the street level, and the party wall underpinned with five substantial blocks of cement concrete. These are still intact, but the centre one has heeled over, allowing the 80-ft. wall above it first to bulge, and then to come down in its entirety, together with some 10 or 12 feet of the front and back walls adjoining. The reason for this, and whether it has any relation to the fact that a large part of the roadway at this point has been found to consist of the concrete skin without any solid earth support, cannot be determined until the debris is cleared away and a close examination made. Other portions of the premises and adjacent buildings were damaged in the crash, but luckily the preliminary warnings of failure allowed the street to be closed, and there was no loss of life nor personal injury.
The report, in last Monday’s papers, of a protest procession making its way from the Boulevard Soult to the Bois de Vincennes via the Porte de Neuilly must have considerably puzzled those who know their Paris well. Only by a march right across the City and then half way round it can such a feat be accomplished; but the explanation is that for “Neuilly’ʼ
one should read “Reuilly. ” If the nomenclature of the Paris Gates is a stumbling-block to the foreigner, their continued existence constitutes another problem which the Civic authorities have yet to solve. For with the disappearance of the fortifications the raison d’etre of gates disappears, but, as the gates are bound up with the question of controls and octroi duties, their removal is not going to be as simple as the razing of the walls in which they occur. Even the pulling down of the fortifications is giving the City fathers anxious thought. Beyond the actual walls is a zone of 1, 000 feet which, for war purposes, had to be kept clear of buildings. The capacity of modern artillery having long since discounted the defensive value of the walls, the authorities have been somewhat lax about this “no-man’s-land, ” on which a heterogeneous collection of buildings, ranging from shacks to factories, have been erected by people at their own risk, and these constitute a barrier to the seemly expansion of the City. Beyond that the external communal authorities have allowed a haphazard
ribbon development along the roads leading out of Paris, so that the problem of new suburbs, from the artistic standpoint, is likely to be as acute as it is round London. Paris has, however, an ambitious regional planning scheme on foot, and having obtained the co-operation of most of the communes of the Department of the Seine in its preparation, the situation may yet be saved.
The latissement movement, which the Paris correspondent of The Times has recently described, is, however, one of the greatest blots on the landscape round about Paris. One of these latissements can be seen from the Nord Railway just before entering Paris, another lies some miles out on the Fontainebleau Road, but a drive along most of the main roads out of the City leads to one of these dreary settlements, which are incomparably worse than any form of development that the C. P. R. E. was formed to combat in this country. The appearance of the latissement is a confession that France, like England, can no longer house its industrial workers on seemly lines that will ensure an economic return. The same phenomenon is looming up in the United States; and seems likely to become a grave economic question in all industrial countries. The French industrial worker, driven out of Paris proper by the high rents and an increasing demand for office accommodation, is left to fend for himself; and becomes a more or less willing customer for the astute financiers who buy up agricultural land and peddle it out in 30-square metre plots. On one of these plots the workman is, apparently, allowed to erect any kind of dwelling that his fancy or, more probably, his purse dictates, so that a latissement exhibits more varieties of shacks than one could see in a Middle-West American State. There are no roads in these settlements, no sanitary systems, and, in the earliest ones, no water supply, though the provision of the last is now made compulsory. The most noticeable architectural effort is for all the world like a child’s doll’s-house, one room deep, three floors high counting the attic in the gabled roof, with a straight, windowless back. Breeze blocks seem to be the commonest building material, and many dwellings with this kind of walling are apparently waiting until the owners can afford stucco or roughcast to hide their ugly colour and make them rainproof.
The Liverpool City Council has definitely decreed
that the Cenotaph to be erected to the memory of the
The ARCHITECT & BUILDING NEWS
August 12, 1927
Proprietors: Gilbert Wood & Co., Ltd.
Managing Director: William L. Wood
Editorial, Publishing and Advertisement Offices:
Rolls House, 2 Breams Buildings, London, E. C. 4. Tel.: Holborn 5708 Registered Office: Imperial Buildings, Ludgate Circus, London, E. C. 4
Principal Contents
Notes and Comments...................................................... page 257, 258 Competition Result...................................................................... 258 Competition Closing Date........................................................... 258 An Important Competition Precedent (Illustration).................. 259, 260 Proposed Masonic Temple, Cowbridge, Glamorgan
(Illustrations)........................................................................ 261 Wren Vignettes: I. — The Dome, Ball and Cross of
St. Paul’s (Illustration)..................................................... 262 263 New Premises in Fenchurch Street, E. C. (Illustration)................ 264
Professional Societies ............................................................. 264, 265 National Library for the Blind, Tufton Street, S. W.
(Illustration)......................................................................... 265 Grey Roofs, Theydon Bois, Essex (Illustrations)................... 266, 267 Correspondence: The Geneva Competition................................... 268 Proposed Open-air Bathing Lake, Princes Park,
Southport (Illustrations)..................................................269
Coming Events..........................................................................269 The Architecture of Exuberances (Illustrations)..................... 270-273 Modern Practice: II. —Exposing the Aggregate in
Concrete...........................................................................274 New Ways and Means (Illustrations)......................................... 275
Architectural Design in Concrete (Illustrations)..................... 276-278 Book Reviews...........................................................................278 London Building Notes.........................................................280 The Week’s Building News............................................... 280, 282 Building Contracts Open.........................................................284 Building Tenders..................................................... 284, 288 Current Market Prices............................................ 286, 288 Current Measured Rates..................................................... 290, 292 Building Wage Grades.............................................................. 294
Notes and Comments
After the recent collapse of a house in the West End whilst it was being underpinned, we have now to record a failure in the City, where the western bay of the Commercial Assurance Building fell into the excavated site destined for the new Lloyds Bank head office in Cornhill. The excavation had been carried down about 18 feet below the street level, and the party wall underpinned with five substantial blocks of cement concrete. These are still intact, but the centre one has heeled over, allowing the 80-ft. wall above it first to bulge, and then to come down in its entirety, together with some 10 or 12 feet of the front and back walls adjoining. The reason for this, and whether it has any relation to the fact that a large part of the roadway at this point has been found to consist of the concrete skin without any solid earth support, cannot be determined until the debris is cleared away and a close examination made. Other portions of the premises and adjacent buildings were damaged in the crash, but luckily the preliminary warnings of failure allowed the street to be closed, and there was no loss of life nor personal injury.
The report, in last Monday’s papers, of a protest procession making its way from the Boulevard Soult to the Bois de Vincennes via the Porte de Neuilly must have considerably puzzled those who know their Paris well. Only by a march right across the City and then half way round it can such a feat be accomplished; but the explanation is that for “Neuilly’ʼ
one should read “Reuilly. ” If the nomenclature of the Paris Gates is a stumbling-block to the foreigner, their continued existence constitutes another problem which the Civic authorities have yet to solve. For with the disappearance of the fortifications the raison d’etre of gates disappears, but, as the gates are bound up with the question of controls and octroi duties, their removal is not going to be as simple as the razing of the walls in which they occur. Even the pulling down of the fortifications is giving the City fathers anxious thought. Beyond the actual walls is a zone of 1, 000 feet which, for war purposes, had to be kept clear of buildings. The capacity of modern artillery having long since discounted the defensive value of the walls, the authorities have been somewhat lax about this “no-man’s-land, ” on which a heterogeneous collection of buildings, ranging from shacks to factories, have been erected by people at their own risk, and these constitute a barrier to the seemly expansion of the City. Beyond that the external communal authorities have allowed a haphazard
ribbon development along the roads leading out of Paris, so that the problem of new suburbs, from the artistic standpoint, is likely to be as acute as it is round London. Paris has, however, an ambitious regional planning scheme on foot, and having obtained the co-operation of most of the communes of the Department of the Seine in its preparation, the situation may yet be saved.
The latissement movement, which the Paris correspondent of The Times has recently described, is, however, one of the greatest blots on the landscape round about Paris. One of these latissements can be seen from the Nord Railway just before entering Paris, another lies some miles out on the Fontainebleau Road, but a drive along most of the main roads out of the City leads to one of these dreary settlements, which are incomparably worse than any form of development that the C. P. R. E. was formed to combat in this country. The appearance of the latissement is a confession that France, like England, can no longer house its industrial workers on seemly lines that will ensure an economic return. The same phenomenon is looming up in the United States; and seems likely to become a grave economic question in all industrial countries. The French industrial worker, driven out of Paris proper by the high rents and an increasing demand for office accommodation, is left to fend for himself; and becomes a more or less willing customer for the astute financiers who buy up agricultural land and peddle it out in 30-square metre plots. On one of these plots the workman is, apparently, allowed to erect any kind of dwelling that his fancy or, more probably, his purse dictates, so that a latissement exhibits more varieties of shacks than one could see in a Middle-West American State. There are no roads in these settlements, no sanitary systems, and, in the earliest ones, no water supply, though the provision of the last is now made compulsory. The most noticeable architectural effort is for all the world like a child’s doll’s-house, one room deep, three floors high counting the attic in the gabled roof, with a straight, windowless back. Breeze blocks seem to be the commonest building material, and many dwellings with this kind of walling are apparently waiting until the owners can afford stucco or roughcast to hide their ugly colour and make them rainproof.
The Liverpool City Council has definitely decreed
that the Cenotaph to be erected to the memory of the