Architectural London In 1884.

The restaurant at the corner of Burlington-street has just been entirely rebuilt , and the new structure , of course , far overtops all the neighbouring houses ; exhibiting in its design a fair amount of most of the approved features of our street architecture of the present day . Most important among these new features is the construction of

additional stories . The quatriemcs and cinquiemes of Parisian houses , Avhich but recently we ridiculed with considerable hilarity , have UOAV become imlispensable in our own ordinary dwellings . Indeed , when we reflect upon the scanty supply of sleeping apartments which it Avas usual to construct in

an ordinary London house of the value of from £ 80 to £ 120 a year , at the time that Regent-street was built , and which scarcely ever exceeded in number two principal bedrooms and three or four attics , it becomes difficult to conceive how the last generation bestowed themselves in their

sleepingarrangements . At all events , it may be asserted that our present ideas on the subject render increased accommodation in this respect absolutely necessary . And so , as it is evident that Ave cannot spread out our ordinary dwellings laterally , on account of the hi gh value of building ground , we

are necessarily driven to the extension of the building upwards . This has UOAV become a fixed principle with our builders , and all private residences in the endless neAv streets , terraces , and squares of Belgravia , Tybumia ., and Wesiboumia , are provided with extra floors of bedrooms ; thus affording sleeping accommodation more in accordance with our present ideas of comfort , propriety , and health . The external architecture is made to

agree ( more or less ) with the increased importance imparted to the building by its superior height ; aud thus it is that the new house in Regentstreet has been made to overtop all its fellows , Avhile the rising Langham Hotel will soon afford a far more striking example of a similar tendency

iu our modern street architecture . In short , it may be safely asserted that , within the next twenty years , a neAv Regent-street will have arisen , Avhich Avill creditably sustain comparison with the famous buildings of the neAV Parisian boulevards , or even the line of palaces of the Roman Corsoor the

, most beautiful of the mai-ble dwellings of Florence "the elegant , " or Genoa "the superb . " We shall have no more of rolling out eight or ten houses into one sham facade ; but in its stead , that charming individuality of architectural effect which Ave have so often admired as

distinguishingeach separate house in the fine old cities of Belgium aud Germany , belonging to the great periods of Flemish and German art . In many of the finest specimens of those noble old houses , each dwelling presents us with as marked an individuality of character as its inhabitants . Each doorway

, Avhich may be called the mouth of the architectural face , smiles on the approaching visitor , after its own peculiar fashion ; its crisply decorative foliage of stone or marble , seeming , in its playful

exuberance , to break into actual words of welcome , symbolised by fruits or flowers cast forth , as it were , in our path . And then these symbols of welcome ai-e generally blended , by the ingenious fancy o the designer , with characteristic implements or emblems connected with the calling or profession

of the occupier . Next come the windowsseeming the glistening eyes of the architectural physiognomy—and they beam on the passers by , each with its own peculiar and delicately different expression—sometimes open and brilliant , where the framing is broad or lofty , as looking forth from

lids widely and fearlessly raised ; while from other window-eyes of the architectural face a somewhat languishing though not the less pleasing glance steals softly toAvards us , as though from gracefully drooping lids , formed by a more than usually depressed curve of the superincumbent wreath or

label . The comes the gable , the forehead of the edifice—now high and bold—now soft and loweach wearing its own peculiar coronal , its jewels or flowers peculiar to itself—jewels of stone or marble , made more precious than those of the soi-disant precious metals by the skilful hand of the carver . All this and mora we shall see

exemplified in tne houses of our streets within the next twenty years , instead of the ' poor , IOAV , characterless fronts and unmeaning length of sham facades of factitious Corinthian or Ionic that exist in oui present Regent-street . It is true , that in so far as Reg-ent-street is concerned , great impediments

to change exist . The ground is CroAvn property , held under leases drawn up by Crown lawyers , and , of course , stuffed cram full of clauses intended to form insurmountable barriers to alterations or improvements of any kind . One would be induced to imagine that the hih authorities in

g whose departments such business is transacted Avould be disposed to facilitate such arrangements as might render costly improvements more practicable ; but such is not found to be the case . A recent philosophic investigator of such matters . Professor Charles Dickenshas discovered the

, cabalistic principle on Avhich questions connected with public improvements are manipulated in those quarters . It is the principle of " how not to do it "—in face of Avhich motive power , possessing , as it does , a powerful double-backward action , it is found exceedingly difficult to get forward .

Nevertheless , and in spite of all the battling of the Partingtonian broom , the tide of improvement has sternly set in , and will inevitably sweep away Regent-street , notwithstanding all the bindingest of clauses in the most stringent of crown leases . Next , and which ought to have come first , let us consider the architectural prospects of the banks of the Thames—that Thames to Avhich London

itself owes its existence . Within the time specified , it present filthy state will have been thoroughly purified , and the wretched agglomeration of inferior and squalid buildings on its shores will have given place to a noble series of public and