Architectural London In 1884.

It may , however , prove more suggestive to sketch out a pen-and-ink picture of architectural London at no more distant epoch than twenty years hence—a picture , the outlines of Avhich are already making themselves visible , and Avhich cannot fail to flatter our national vanity , instead

of suggesting the depressing idea of a London in ruins , in the far-off New Zealandic epoch—should such an era ever arrive , which , in the present state of Maori progress and politics , seems less and less probable . At a period not more -distant than the year of

grace 1884 , it may be fairly assumed that the architecture of London will have assumed an artistic character as far in advance of its present aspect as its present is from that of the year of those famous treaties and conventions of 181-5 , which were thought to have settled everything ,

both political and artistic , upon a permanent basis , while passing events are every clay proving to us that they settled neither the one nor the other . At that epoch ( 1 . 815 ) , scarcely more than fifty years ago , that vast dingy mass of brick-andmorfcar Londonwith its meanlow housescrashed

, , , Avith their cumbrous tiled roofs , and unenlivened hy their small , badly glazed , aud insufficient windows , —half of which were built up to avoid William Pitt ' s too celebrated window-tax—was still intact .

In the north-west , it is true , Portland-place , and a few squares , and wider streets , containing more spacious and better-lighted houses , had been gradually making their appearance during three quarters of a century ,- but the metropolitan agglomeration of crowded and dismal buildings , and

narrow streets and alleys , which formed the main portions even of the aristocratic parishes of St . James and St . George , still enjoy all their ancient prestige of destiny , dii-fc , arid ding-mess . And then they were so blackened by successive coatings of the coal smoke of centuriesthat Avhether they

, were themselves built of coal instead of brick might have been a point open to discussion . It was only about the year 1815 , that it was determined to cut a broad roadway through the

murky centre of a mass of streets and alleys , Avhich then disappeared for ever from the map of London , in order to form a new grand street , considerably above a mile in length , leading from Carlton House , the residence of the Prince Regent , to the newly-formed park , Avhich Avas to take its

name from the then existing Regency . The new line of communication arising on the sites of Glasshouse-street , Swallow-street , and a host of smaller streets and alleys , became gradually the Regent-street of to-day ; and being commenced soon after our great military triumph at

"Waterloo , the broad opening opposite Carlton House received the name of Waterloo-place ; the Avhole forming what may be termed our " Boulevard Sebastopol" of that time . So thoroughly established UOAV is that Regent-street as the

leading feature of the street architecture of western London , that it is difficult to conceive an " architectural Louden" without it ; the fact being , that before that time there was , in the matter of streets , no architectural London at all . The effect produced by the designs of Mr . Nash

Avas considered very great among the more advanced critics of that day , and they were , doubtless , an immense advance upon the artistic state of things in the matter of street architecture which Ave found generally prevailing at the time . The stle has since been mercilessly criticisedand

y , it is certainly true that the conventional addition of parasitic columns , and the creation of sham facades of imposing extent , produced by swamp ing the individuality of half a dozen or more houses , in order to make them form ( in external aspect ) a single building , was not a very lofty

kind of art ; but the plan , such as it was , was fairly carried out , in its own fashion , and com pletely answered its temporary purpose ( a very

important one ) , that of demonstrating the advantage aud necessity of Avicle thoroughfares , and more ornamental buildings , even for a street of shops . Nevertheless , John Bull , in his good honest conservatism , scoffed a good deal at the wholesale innovation . The good public of the

time did not take kindly to the " Roman cement " and other " extravagant " and " neAV-fangled things , " about the great new street . Those new things , however , in this fast-moving age , have already become obsolete—and already is the great new street of the Regency doomed to speedy

demolition . Steam and railways have made our architects , and even our general public , acquainted with the architectural splendours of the Continent , and Avith the taste acquired by their study the real short-comings of the Regent-street style of architecture have become very plainly apparent . The yards upon yards of Mr . Nash ' s Corinthian and Ionic facades of stucco , which even at the time of their erection were ridiculed as the

Nashional style , are no longer found satisfactory , and are silently , but surely , doomed to early destruction . The first bloAv was struck some years ago , when the Club Chambers were built , in Waterlooplace ; but the public mind had then just begun to get accustomed to the architecture of the

Regency , and the dwarfish height of the buildings in regard to the great width of the street had not been as yet much remarked , and , therefore , great was the outcry against the " ugly monster of a building" which utterly dwarfed its neighbours , and reduced to pigmy dimensions the

adjoiningchapel , which is , in fact , a pretty little structure enough . The removal of the cast iron colonnade of the Quadrant after a considerable interval , was the next serious MOAV—a very serious one , indeed , as it removed at one fell swoop the most original feature of the entire street . But now has commenced the promiscuous onslaught upon individual houses : in good earnest .