| |
Museum critics can’t speak for us
• THE so-called Bloomsbury Conservation Advisory Committee has no right to speak about the British Museum development on behalf of Bloomsbury, whose residents they do not consult.
The pilasters at each end of the north façade of the British Museum are remarkably bold, and the left-hand side of the building proposed by the BM would complement the one at the west end beautifully. It would also provide a visually exciting closure to the south end of Malet Street, instead of the 1950s pastiche that stands there at the moment.
It is true that some daylight would be lost to the arched room and elsewhere; but all the windows would with the development look out on a landscaped area and a fine modern building, rather than a clutter of rubbish areas and poor buildings.
As for the silly language about “punching” holes, it is a question of opening up doors where there were till a few years ago tall windows. The proposed doors in the north west façade of the Great Court will enhance it: instead of a cold wall, the doors will beckon to the treasures beyond, and will also allow the reversal of at least of one of the mistakes of the Great Court scheme, by the removal of the ugly long cafeteria tables there.
The planning committee should realise that if the Cullums of this world had been around at the time, we would have neither the north nor the south facade of the British Museum; and you can just hear them describing a Gothic cathedral as “an overdevelopment shoe-horned into a site”, can’t you?
Michael H Crawford
Tavistock Place, WC1
|
 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
