A Spectator's Notebook
THE MONSTER OF PICCADILLY CIRCUS
THE London Pavilion cinema, in Piccadilly Circus, has for some time had a policy of show- ing horror films. The Creature. from the Black Lagoon rubs shoulders with The Thing from Outer Space, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake rattle busily away, and The Mummy stalks through the land with (as Dr. Bergen Evans said of the popular conception of gorillas) 'a blood- stained knife in one hand and a limp virgin in the other.' But it is quite possible, and indeed extremely likely, that within a fairly short space of time there will be a monster in Piccadilly Circus beside which the most extravagant fancies of the horror-film industry will seem insipid and even charming. The monster in question is the building that it is proposed shall be erected on the north, side, decorated with illuminated advertisements; a building which would seriously and permanently disfigure the face of London. Nor should those who do not live in London feel that they need not concern themselves with the matter, for I calculate that on a clear night the highest adver- tisements on the Eros side of the building will be visible from the top of the South Downs. How- ever,, I am not here primarily concerned with questions of esthetics; it is more important to trace the stepi by which the present situation was reached, for some of them are disturbing, and many of [hem strange.
To start with, then, one or two miscon- ceptions may as well be cleared away. In the first place, Piccadilly Circus, despite the optical illusion caused by the statue of Eros and its octagonal pavement, is not round, and in fact there are no concave curves fronting it at all; the last of these disappeared many years before the war. Secondly, it is at the moment strikingly bereft of anything architecturally meri- torious; in the Criterion Building it contains one of the least imaginative and interesting structures in central London, and in the London Pavilion cinema one of the nastiest—and one, moreover, which is made nastier still by the hoardings it is the policy of the cinema's management to display. The view into Shaftesbury Avenue is one of un- relieved shoddiness, and that into Coventry Street scarcely better. For those who like what Regent Street has become the view into it must be agree- able, though Swan and Edgar is one of the poorest buildings in the street and the handsome arches of the County Fire Office are virtually invisible from anywhere except Lower Regent Street; the best viewpoints invite almost certain death from the whirling traffic. Only Piccadilly and Lower Regent Street offer really pleasing prospects. Of the design of the shops and restaurants that stand round the Circus, not to mention the poky little cubby-hole that is the foyer of the Criterion Theatre, it is difficult to speak tem- perately. The pavements are ludicrously and dangerously narrow. Some of the illuminated
By BERNARD LEVIN
advertisements are striking and not unattractive, but far more are seedy and half-hearted, and few give any indication that the designers knew or cared anything about their place in the general pattern.
In other words, Piccadilly Circus is a mess and a ruin, and if it were knocked down tomorrow Lon-
On Wednesday, December 16, a public inquiry opens into the redevelopment of the Monico site at Piccadilly Circus. The present plans are being vigorously opposed by those who believe that the proposed building would not add to the beauty or architectural integrity of the area, and would in fact detract from them. It is their belief that an area as central and important as Piccadilly Circus should be designed and developed as a comprehensive unit, and it is in this belief, which the 'Spectator' fully shares, that the following article is pre- sented for the consideration of its readers and of the public inquiry.
don, would lose nothing and gain a good deal. We can safely ignore the sentimentalists who speak of its being 'the hub of the Empire'; yet it is cer- tainly one of the most important hubs of the West End; as a north-south and east-west intersection it already takes 55,000 vehicles a day, and as a popular meeting-place both for individuals and for celebrating crowds it is unrivalled in London.
This being so, it follows that the London County Council has a great responsibility to do the belt that can be done with this area. But there are difficulties.
The sites fronting it are held by a variety of groups, but the three main blocks, which between them hold the key to any unified reconstruction of the Circus, are the London Pavilion site, the Criterion block, and the Monico site. The freehold of the London Pavilion is held by the LCC, and the lease falls in in 1965; but the Council has made no further effort to acquire freeholds round the Circus apart from this one. Discussion of a com- prehensive development plan for the area has been going on in and around the LCC since before the war, and it is worth pointing out that such a comprehensive plan need not be confined to the Circus proper; the sordid slums of the streets behind the Pavilion (such as Lisle Street). Cov- entry Street at least as far as Wardour Street (it comes as a shock to many to learn that there is a pin-table saloon next door to Scott's), the Hay- market, Glasshouse Street and Shaftesbury Avenue down to Cambridge Circus—these could all come into a plan that might, if treated with sufficient daring and imagination, become one of the most imaginative townscapes, and one of the finest pieces of integral architectural town-plan- ning, in the world.
The trouble is, of course, that buying up property on this scale needs a lot of money. The LCC has not got this sort of money available. And there are grave difficulties in the way of its borrowing it. Chief among these difficulties are
the statutory restrictions imposed on the borrow- ing powers of local authorities in general, and the extra restrictions faced by the London County Council in particular. The Council's capital bud- get has to be approved each year, in the form of a Bill, by Parliament, and the Government would be unlikely to look favourably on an application by the Council to borrow sums of the size involved here; Mr. Henry Brooke, the Minister of Hous- ing and Local Government, is on record with a fairly broad hint that he would discourage' 'speculation' by local authorities. Moreover, the Council cannot build new offices just to let, on a strict commercial basis. On the other hand, large-scale public development, even with the restrictions imposed by the law and the Government, is by no means impossible. One of the things which the Council could do, to get round the restrictions on the type of building they may do, is to buy the land and lease to private builders such sites as they may not develop them- selves, with the condition that the private builders will build according to the general plan for the area; in other words, to make its own comprehen- sive design, and insist that the private builders developing parts of the area will follow this. Or, as they have done in the Elephant and Castle area, they could invite both prospective developers and architects to submit schemes for the redevelopment, and choose among them. Or, simplest of all, they could impose a general de- velopment plan, prepared by their own excellent Architect's Department (in which there is a good deal. of frustration and bitterness caused by the lack of scope allowed them and the lack of fore- sight and imagination displayed by their political bosses; the rate of staff turnover among architects and town planners at County Hall is depressingly high, and in the circumstances this is not sur- prising), and allow the site to be developed oy private builders within that plan.
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