1957-08-19 — Page 4

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Poor old lady London-she's getting an

Atom-age facelift

AND THE TOURISTS CRY WITH A WHOOP OF RECOGNITION

"Why it's just like home.'

THE

HE City of Londen is getting a facelift. American Kildare visitors scouring the City's winding streets for old House, world charm aro suddenly confronted with gleaming cliffs Dorset Rise, of white concrete,

With a whoop of recognition, they cry, "Why it's just like home,”

consecrated

ground

by SARAH ROTHSCHILD

in London

110W

E.C.4.

THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1957.

LONDON'S SKYLINE IN CONCRETE

AS KEITH MACKENZIE SEES IT

ship, rises brilliantly from workers who have to work where the the rubble. And around it, inte and also for

overseas are secure, like huge icebergs, are shin visitors. ing white office buildings.

Not are

Asurance millions

It

MISTER LUSH LIFE

'Once you have tasted power nothing ever tustes so good again”.

You

Caracas, Venezuela. YOU are scorching up the suit miles along a spectacular mountain road in your brand new German Opel car.

Ahead of you lies a pleasant week-end at your hacienda near the farming town of Barquisimeto. Beside you is your cx- tremely pretty and seductive girl friend, 27-year-old 1sabe. Martinez.

Behind you is your new villa in the fantastically prosperous Venezucian capital of Caracas, You have on a good sult ami have a lot of money in the bank not only in Venezuek, but also in such spots as Switzerland,

By

RENE MacCOLE

04

And to some degree they are right. In the last few yeurs, the City, once recognisable by its delicate forest of

Near the famous Noncon- Wren spires, is fast be

formit cemetery, Bural Fields, coming distinguished by its

Almoal next door to this where John Bunyan and William At a reverent distance vast concrete beehive of Blake buried, mass of impressive concrete.

is Finsbury Square,

on to its Looking Behind the Old Bell Pub

from Wren's masterpiece is activity

another: stands

tangled garden is the impressive. in Fleet Street lies Wren's

Gateway House in Watling Watling House in Cannon bluck catctior of Royal London Street. It is made of 12,000 Street. Like so many new House, church of St Bride. The shadow of its tower, called

tons of reinforced concrete, building in London, Two parts of it were built in stretches to 90 feet, and stands by Henley "a madrigal in

on historic ground. 1927, including the gathic tower, nione," falls at noon across

weighs 26,000 tons.

For it was here that the The third part, w under ce- that symphony in concrete

True, you are 62 years old, but destroyed by a bomb nat long Huge and fantastic buildings by the middle of December, These overpowering statis- first hall of the Worshipful struction, is due to be finished Kildare House.

the clouds. They Was was started in April 1955,

you re admirably preserved, ego. You were not in it for stretch for

in riotous colour your hair is still dark, your tisztely and there are

even glitter Round its car park, which merely functional. In spite ties are made palatable by Company of Salters

Agure good, and your eye bright, some stupid people who whisper though in vivid celebration of all of their solid foundations its pleasant exterior and built in 1454. Nearby stands.

You are a great invourite with ikat you yourself erused the the wafounded Corecas wealth. the Goverment of the county bomb to be planted in order to High interior decur. Outside, the the church of St. Michael LUXURY FITTINGS concrete is faced with 300, Paternoster Royal, in which

You curry sympathy. of which you are a guest. 000 bricks and decorated lies the mummified body of

Mr Brightwell, the general with Portland store and Dick Whittington's cat.

foreman, look ne on to tour of ore papular with the people.

Hundreds the building.

Why, then, is all not for the ball to mosaic motifs. Inside, there

best 5 the best of all passible Lombard Street is one of workmen, with the euse of

| your" me Is Jun Domingo The effolding.

R" Perch, one-time dictator

in spite of your apparent Down in the car park, 40 feet Argentine and wice you have popularity you take no chances,

a long taste of power

Gilbert, your faithful chauf blow ground, there is space for had 50 cars. Next to it is the air-nothing in the world ever taste

feur-bodyguard, Ic conditioned boiler room. The quite so good again.

walls are lined with: But what a home from home shadow. A handy man with flats, concret #1 steel scrcons which can be jet it's beas for you ih 6,000ft. blackjack, or gat is Gliberti.

Then there 13 Rodolpho com- down in case of emergency.

A stream of Peronista high Martinez, your constant

the villa.

Peron has

belonging to the church of they have the comfort and St Bride's is not allowed to Warmth of a luxury hotel on be built upon, it rises as while and sheer as the cliffs

the Cornish Riviera.

The

entrance

of disguised strength. Tall with

of

of Dover. A spiral staircase Kildare House is a triumph is a spacious entrance hall the most picturesque streets Jungle monkeys, swung through worlds? Because of the fact that

丸 two-storey

high

Caracas.

the

‘SALESMAN”

>IDICULOUS of course,

But

S your

of shining glass rises almost as high as Wren's tallest concrete pillars support the balcony of reinforced con-

For centuries in the City. strepic.

it has been one of the chief eight-storey building. There crete with a glass ant are no beams to mur the metal balustrade. The tall banking and financial centres COMFORT TOO the smooth line of wall and pillars are faced with black of London. The narrow,

ceiling.

marble. Modern chandeliers winding street is hung with

bank signs: colourful hang from the maroon

Saracen's head, a golden 10,000 square foot dining soundproof ceiling.

grasshoper and burnished

But upstairs the atmosphere is brass comes and moes without pien, who lives with you at room, which seats 550. Here Upstairs there is a large anchor. At the end of the far from warlike. The offees any the

concrete pillars are rest room, shaped like an street there is a narrow, and white, with large windows. pining for "the day." faced with lemon plastic, the ocean liner's viewing lounge, dark alleyway called Plough

Here walls and ceiling are pale with long windows which Court, blue washable plastic, look on to St. Paul's and Pope was born in 1688. acoustic lined.

But the office buildings of the Atom-age being put up

Gateway House Walling Stree. ..Č.4.

Downstairs is the airy

across

to Battersea and

Alexander

Millwall. It is on the same SEVEN STOREYS

as the whispering

I took the lift. in which level there were four coloured gallery in the cathedral. And now, on the site where he bella in ense of emergency. to the roof. There, as far as On the sixth floor there is lived, workmen are busy.com. The eye could see was a a special suite of contem- panoramic view of London, porary designed bedrooms, St Paul's like some becalmed full of light and sun, for

(DODWELL & CO., LTD.

W rozOENI

Wine & Spirit Department

QUEEN LAWLT1> I

BUCHANAN'S

BLACK & WHITE WHISKY

AGENCIES

QUEEN ELIZANTH

GORDON'S

GINS AND COCKTAILS

15 The Lag

ARTMENT

THE LATE

GED 19

BIG DIČ ČON daj ty

SANDEMAN'S

PORTS & SHERRIES

TAROTENE

VEUVE CLICQUOT

CHAMPAGNE

PONTE

TO THE LITE

LION FI

ETCH LIBURU

LANSON

CHAMPAGNE

TONYMOU

DE THE NETHERLANDS

WYNAND FOCKINK DUTCH LIQUEURS

MARTEL L

COGNAC BRANDY

HUNT ROOPE & CO., LTD..

PORTS & SHERRIES

PABST

BLUE RIBBON DEER'

Mc. EWAN-YOUNGER LTD. BOTTLED HEER

WINCARNIS AMSTEL BEER

TONIC WINE

CARRERAS LTD.

CRAVEN "A". PICCADILLY NO. 1

& DUNHILL CIGARETTES

HOLLAND

QUEEN'S BUILDING, HONG KONG TEL 20636 &38970.

pleting a seven-storey new whog to the Guaranty Company of New York.

All the doors are surrounded with Nigerian walnut. There are prettily tiled cloakrooms, The entrance halt will be lined with Julian marble. How much will this 71,500-ion of concrete, sioño, brick and marble, cost?

Mr Brightwell told me.

Around a million," my guide

hindrance,

< ploiting

EVERYTHING

daver FE guanted flat

your

you used to have them a 13 heavily You still do, but now it's not a fiat any more but A very alez villa in the smart residential quarter of El Roma),

on

ofice AZL the seventh floor of a big block of business premises in the heart of Caracas. He attends it irre-

up on a

mountain they bulll en hotel which from below resembles a glan!'s finger made of glass. Swooping uiderposes and vast now highways are cun- stanly ripped into being.

Walters, European, fo the hotels here think nolliing of fly- ing back in their home countries regularly for their summer holi- days every year.

EXPENSIVE

BRIEF taxi drive can get you back three plines. A. modest meal five paints. In this selling Percy can easily hold his

o

Certain it is that Perco is very And how- gularly and just what business well heeled Indeed. he performs is not quite clear. ever much time he may devote to the motor-scooters and the There is talk of his belig o super sales representative for an construction business, there is no talks firm of motor-scooter doubt that the number one con

sideration in his mind is the manufacturers

come-back. is also believed to have plotting is his life. He lives Invested heavily is some of the for the arrival of his coofden- firms which are tipl courlers bringing him re- the non-stop ports from the "wyround post

Another building which towers above normal eye level is the London Assurance in St Swithins Lare. Rising sheer No After having spent nly so much as the specially in- Not so long ago it was from the narrow paviment it week stretches to a lofty tight storeys, these massive concrete edicts something of The wudorned concrete exterior is relieved by 101t, high statues,

emblems of the Atm. Under- ground, between Le massive which suppori concrete arches the building, are huge sales

This is the new City of Lon- Air-conditioned throughout, of constructića don mostly erected by Trollope course. All mod. com. (and be taking part and Colls, These aro the lieve Inc, in boom-infested development of this runaway office" in Montevideo, just across

the con, are the most town. necessary buildings to house our Caress

the River Plate from Buenos And what a town it is. Frem Aires. ever increasing commerce. The mod, conceivable).

Big bar. Wonderful bathroom, rags to riching 1 a phrase that inevitable question is: Do they

When Evita, the dynamic, |with coyx laps. But the bar and might have been made spoil the landscape?

up toughly ambitious wife of Peron the batean do't matter near- specially for Cartens.

died back in 1953, the sorrow- abg Perca ordered all clocks in etalles safe. That sale encloses drowsy little town of red roofs, public places to be stopped per- the past and hotsodrawn vehicles, and nothing manently with their hends

For there over two storeys high. have came to the conclusion much of the future.

pointing to the excet moment of ai, far from taking away from must be a future. It can't go cu

Then the oil started spouting Evita's death. the historic buildings, they like this.

and so did the ecch. Venezuela the emphasise

But while tine may have stood Indestructible

Incidentally, the reason why her hit the jackvot.

still for Evita, for Juan Domingo proportions of Wren.

your Opel car is so glitteringly Since then it has been just ene Peran, ke for the rest of us, new is because your last car was long, glorious spending splurge. the clock feks kaexorably on.

looking intensely

1

-London Express Service).

There's been a revolution

in the bachelor's

bathroom . . .

We have witnessed a textile revolution during the past

five years.

No one appreciates this more keenly

than the bachelor.

I live in. a household

bachelors and we have gone

about 50 per cent "drip-dry,"

Or if you like, "non-iron,” These are interchangeable terms for a certain type cotton fabric, which hez some

of the qualities of nylon.

→

Advantages

ot

it

by PETER

CHAMBERS

(b) Post it home to mother (presumptuous).

(c) Get a girl friend to do

fyou be married montis, man

172 B

---(d) Wash and from it your. and

It dries fast and the creases aclf (who's got an iron?).

dry out with it.

(c) Try washing it,

The advantages of a shirt yourself, simultaneously, in the made in such a fabric are both (distinctly grubby). obvious. It saves laundry bills.. But the textile revolution has You simply wash the shirt and set bachelors Dee from these. hang it up. Twelve hours later pestiferous chores, free from the you can put it on again, without regiment of women, Ironing.

Ten years ago, when I was o poorer bachelor than I am now, I remember the strange shifts

Wash-day tres become a relie of the past,

There is no sceral

The problem of designing non-crease collar ins been solved by Interlining the collur with

polythene-coated cotton, which has a strong resillence or "spring-back" setlön.

Stiff collar

In my household you can see the impact of this textile re- volution at three stages.

Bachelor A, it has not touched at all. He favours collars

tú

stiff and white da a sen-washed bone, and he owns no drip-dry ghirts,

Bachelor B. on the other hand, never weam anything else. "Why pay in. Od, a shirt to the laun- dries when you can do it your- sell?"

Bachelor C is me. I am part- converted.

1 prefer the crisper laundered shirt, and I usually wear one to the office. I wear a drip-dry at the weekends or out of town, for the sheer convenience of it, Like nylon shirts, the frat "drip-dries" were plain white or cream: not much of a cholce, Now that the product has caught on, the manufacturers have become more adventurous and are turning out the now shirts in a wide range of checks and stripes.

"Bold look" continental pat- terns are the new thing fon sports shirts, The designs are Italy- bought in France and countries where check shirts are so bold you can play droughts on a man's chest.

in:

All that remains to bo vented now, for the bachelor's entire comfort, is a shirt you don't wash or iron.

And what of the stomen? The drip-dry dabrle has now spread to blouses,, A now range which can be delöð on a towel rall overnight and worn right about sted finish. The resin, which is the warp was doubled and this away rext morning will go into drip-dry cotton. The process is added at the last stage, gives extra body in the cloth did the the shops soon.

of trick.

The strica are simple, for We went to when it became rot palented. It was known to the cloth its high degree irresistibly necessary to

Drip-lry, scoffed at in the office wear, and reminiscent of the "ereain recovery. wash techniciana Jong before. some clother

texile industry at firal, rapidly men's miniature shirts. Most of fabric was successfully menu- That is, it dries out smooth.

The number of loctured and

When the resinating process became a top-seller. More than them bavo stiff collar. marketed four

now dressier ones flaust rows of years ago.

was first tried experimentally, It 60 per cent of the thirte

Britain are tucks or contrasting yoke banda, a did not "take" woll on ordinary manufactured

of made of drip-dry cotton.

-London Expitze Service). poplin. Then the strength

A

There wero things you could do:

(a) Send it all to the loun- dry (expensive).

Briefly, drip-dry fabric is reinforced cotton with a resin

..

.