some of our new double-basement structures penetrate into the water-bearing stratum that is known to lie under much of London; in other cases, the presence of water may be due to springs. But the time seems to be ripe for the preparation of a large-scale geological map of London, showing depths at which waterlogged ground has been found, or where underground currents have been located. This would be of great practical value to architects, contractors and building owners; and much of the data for it could no doubt be furnished by a pooling of the experiences of those who have already been concerned in building operations in the Metropolis.
Subsoil water is not, unfortunately, the only source of trouble from which London buildings may suffer in the future. During recent years there has been a growing volume of complaint about damage done through vibration set up by heavy motor traffic, and this evil is likely to increase rather than decrease. The authorities of St. Thomas’s Hospital are among the latest to draw attention to the matter, repairs necessitated to their building as a result of vibration now figuring as an item calling for special mention in the treasurer’s recent report. The hospital, it is true, stands on made ground, the site having been reclaimed from the foreshore of the Thames when the Albert Embankment was constructed; but this fact was taken into account when the buildings were erected 65 years ago, and a bed of concrete 10 feet thick was provided as a foundation. Even this substantial base, however, fails to counteract the vibration occasioned by passing tramcars and lorries. And if such substantial buildings as those of St. Thomas’s Hospital suffer in this way, it is easy to understand how much damage is being occasioned to speculative buildings of the domestic class built about 100 years ago of which whole districts were erected in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The inflation of property values in London has given such dwellings a fictitious market value, based on the high rents at present obtainable on account of the housing shortage; but those in the vicinity of main thoroughfares are being rapidly disintegrated by the increasing vibration, and will soon command only site value, with consequent heavy loss to their owners.
Many people, keenly desirous to see London University plant its headquarters in Bloomsbury, rather doubted the suitability of the projected site when offered by the Government six years ago, because of its inter-section by so many public roads. Now that the University authorities have arranged to take up the land, this question has become more pressing, and a conference is to take place this autumn
between representatives of the University Senate, the L. C. C. and the Borough Councils of Holborn and
St. Pancras, to discuss the closing of certain streets and gardens in replanning the site for university pur
poses. That Torrington Square garden must be absorbed was manifest from the first. That Russell Square and Woburn Square are also scheduled demands some explanation. Neither garden is at present ‘‘open, ’’ but whether ‘‘closing’’ means that
they are to be reserved solely for university use, or that the public are to be debarred from even walking round them because the University buildings will front roads on one side of them, has yet to be made clear.
If we are to judge by recent correspondence, the desire of the East Sussex County Council to extend its office accommodation involves either the removal of a portion of the curtain wall of Lewes Castle, scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Act, or else the destruction of Newcastle House, which Mr. Walter H. Godfrey pronounces to be the finest building in Lewes High Street, and one for the preservation of which great efforts have been made. The housing of County officials does not seem to justify either alternative, and the right course in such circumstances would seem to be the entire removal of the County offices to another position. But while the proposal to interfere with the Castle precincts seems to excite strong protest from some Sussex archæologists, it is left to Mr. Godfrey to put in a word for Newcastle House. The excessively narrow mediævalism of our archæologists is sometimes intensely irritating. The majority are so vastly interested in excavating and preserving the footings of mediæval structures that the destruction of entire buildings of a later period escapes both their attention or their sympathy. In reality, their mentality is religious rather than artistic.
A faculty, applied for jointly by the Royal Free Hospital, London, and the St. Pancras Borough Council, to effect an exchange of 356 square yards of land, was refused by the Chancellor of the Diocese of London on the ground of want of jurisdiction. The hospital authorities, to provide for an extension of their buildings, desired to secure a portion of the disused burial ground of St. Andrew’s, Gray’s Inn Road, now a public garden under the Borough Council, and to give up an equal area of ground adjoining another part of the burial ground. The Chancellor promised to facilitate an appeal in any way he could, if the petitioners decided on that course.
In our issue for May 13 last, the design for the new Federal Parliament House at Canberra, then illustrated, was attributed to Mr. W. Burley Griffin. Writing from Commonwealth House, Melbourne, the Secretary of the Commonwealth Works and Railways Department requests us, in fairness both to Mr. Griffin and to that Department, to correct this ascription, the Parliament House “having been designed by architectural officers” of the Commonwealth Works and Railway Department.
Competition Result
[Reprinted from Late Edition of “The Architect & Building News, ” August 12. ] Birmingham Civic Centre Competition
Mr. H. V. Lanchester, F. R. I. B. A., Assessor. First Premium £1, 000. — Maximilian Romanoff and Ziza Duertein-Romanoff, Rue de Vaugirard Paris (No. of Design, 65).
Supplementary Premiums. — £200, G. Niedermann and K. Hippenmeier, Zurich (28); £200, L. M Austin Heston, Middlesex (79); £100, Adams, Thompson & Fry, Victoria Street, Westminster (15) £100 E Prentice Mawson, Victoria Street, Westminster (36); £100, G. Oulie-Hansen, Karl Johans gt. 20, Oslo, Nor
way (87); £100, Armando d’Angelo, East 185 Street, New York City (91); £50, Ir. A. Boeken, Amsterdam (51); £50, Louis Berthin and Georges Doyon, Rue Maublanc, Paris (69).
Highly Commended. — W. R. Davidge and G. A. Rose, Victoria Street, Westminster (72); James A. Swan, Daimler House, Paradise Street, Birmingham (76), Alec G. Jenson, Newbold Terrace, Leamington Spa (80).
Subsoil water is not, unfortunately, the only source of trouble from which London buildings may suffer in the future. During recent years there has been a growing volume of complaint about damage done through vibration set up by heavy motor traffic, and this evil is likely to increase rather than decrease. The authorities of St. Thomas’s Hospital are among the latest to draw attention to the matter, repairs necessitated to their building as a result of vibration now figuring as an item calling for special mention in the treasurer’s recent report. The hospital, it is true, stands on made ground, the site having been reclaimed from the foreshore of the Thames when the Albert Embankment was constructed; but this fact was taken into account when the buildings were erected 65 years ago, and a bed of concrete 10 feet thick was provided as a foundation. Even this substantial base, however, fails to counteract the vibration occasioned by passing tramcars and lorries. And if such substantial buildings as those of St. Thomas’s Hospital suffer in this way, it is easy to understand how much damage is being occasioned to speculative buildings of the domestic class built about 100 years ago of which whole districts were erected in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The inflation of property values in London has given such dwellings a fictitious market value, based on the high rents at present obtainable on account of the housing shortage; but those in the vicinity of main thoroughfares are being rapidly disintegrated by the increasing vibration, and will soon command only site value, with consequent heavy loss to their owners.
Many people, keenly desirous to see London University plant its headquarters in Bloomsbury, rather doubted the suitability of the projected site when offered by the Government six years ago, because of its inter-section by so many public roads. Now that the University authorities have arranged to take up the land, this question has become more pressing, and a conference is to take place this autumn
between representatives of the University Senate, the L. C. C. and the Borough Councils of Holborn and
St. Pancras, to discuss the closing of certain streets and gardens in replanning the site for university pur
poses. That Torrington Square garden must be absorbed was manifest from the first. That Russell Square and Woburn Square are also scheduled demands some explanation. Neither garden is at present ‘‘open, ’’ but whether ‘‘closing’’ means that
they are to be reserved solely for university use, or that the public are to be debarred from even walking round them because the University buildings will front roads on one side of them, has yet to be made clear.
If we are to judge by recent correspondence, the desire of the East Sussex County Council to extend its office accommodation involves either the removal of a portion of the curtain wall of Lewes Castle, scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Act, or else the destruction of Newcastle House, which Mr. Walter H. Godfrey pronounces to be the finest building in Lewes High Street, and one for the preservation of which great efforts have been made. The housing of County officials does not seem to justify either alternative, and the right course in such circumstances would seem to be the entire removal of the County offices to another position. But while the proposal to interfere with the Castle precincts seems to excite strong protest from some Sussex archæologists, it is left to Mr. Godfrey to put in a word for Newcastle House. The excessively narrow mediævalism of our archæologists is sometimes intensely irritating. The majority are so vastly interested in excavating and preserving the footings of mediæval structures that the destruction of entire buildings of a later period escapes both their attention or their sympathy. In reality, their mentality is religious rather than artistic.
A faculty, applied for jointly by the Royal Free Hospital, London, and the St. Pancras Borough Council, to effect an exchange of 356 square yards of land, was refused by the Chancellor of the Diocese of London on the ground of want of jurisdiction. The hospital authorities, to provide for an extension of their buildings, desired to secure a portion of the disused burial ground of St. Andrew’s, Gray’s Inn Road, now a public garden under the Borough Council, and to give up an equal area of ground adjoining another part of the burial ground. The Chancellor promised to facilitate an appeal in any way he could, if the petitioners decided on that course.
In our issue for May 13 last, the design for the new Federal Parliament House at Canberra, then illustrated, was attributed to Mr. W. Burley Griffin. Writing from Commonwealth House, Melbourne, the Secretary of the Commonwealth Works and Railways Department requests us, in fairness both to Mr. Griffin and to that Department, to correct this ascription, the Parliament House “having been designed by architectural officers” of the Commonwealth Works and Railway Department.
Competition Result
[Reprinted from Late Edition of “The Architect & Building News, ” August 12. ] Birmingham Civic Centre Competition
Mr. H. V. Lanchester, F. R. I. B. A., Assessor. First Premium £1, 000. — Maximilian Romanoff and Ziza Duertein-Romanoff, Rue de Vaugirard Paris (No. of Design, 65).
Supplementary Premiums. — £200, G. Niedermann and K. Hippenmeier, Zurich (28); £200, L. M Austin Heston, Middlesex (79); £100, Adams, Thompson & Fry, Victoria Street, Westminster (15) £100 E Prentice Mawson, Victoria Street, Westminster (36); £100, G. Oulie-Hansen, Karl Johans gt. 20, Oslo, Nor
way (87); £100, Armando d’Angelo, East 185 Street, New York City (91); £50, Ir. A. Boeken, Amsterdam (51); £50, Louis Berthin and Georges Doyon, Rue Maublanc, Paris (69).
Highly Commended. — W. R. Davidge and G. A. Rose, Victoria Street, Westminster (72); James A. Swan, Daimler House, Paradise Street, Birmingham (76), Alec G. Jenson, Newbold Terrace, Leamington Spa (80).