1930 Commercial Style

[‘The Regency did not produce “gems” either in architecture or anything else’—Sir Reginald Blomfield (the architect of the New Lambeth Bridge, Regent Street and Carlton House Terrace) in The Times, December 14, 1932.]

How nice to watch the buildings go

From Regent Street to Savile Row.

How nice to know, despite it all,

We need not grumble when they fall;

For ain’t the big new Quadrant lined

With facings ‘Architect-designed’?

What has it got to do with us—

Mere cranks who like to make a fuss—

Because we get a little tired

Of ancient men, howe’er inspired,

Who since the century began

Have built in Frenchified Queen Anne?

Or just because we look askance

At England’s Neo-Renaissance?

How nice to know that bare steel frame

Will soon look very much the same

As Greenwich: though three times as high—

A Christmas parcel for the sky,

All ugly function is not shown

When once it’s wrapped in Portland stone.

That stucco in which Nash delighted

Is false and, like his times, benighted.

For how can Wren and Nash be call’d

As able as Sir Reginald?

And how could they, in their positions,

Have coped with modern changed conditions?

I hate to see the framework flanks

All bare behind the City banks;

I like to put, until it falls,

My capital in capitals.

How can we know, we carping fools,

Mysterious architectural rules?

And have we been to public schools?