Word: holford
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Brazilian admiral, a lifelong pacifist and the acknowledged father of Brazil's flashy modern architecture, won the contest for a master city plan. While others submitted blueprints and models, Costa sketched on five sheets of paper what one judge, Britain's Sir William Holford, called "a city with solutions, not problems, built in." Says Costa: "The shape of Brasilia was born out of the simple gesture of a man who indicates a place or marks it as his own: two lines crossing at right angles...
...publishing the proposed plans for St. Paul's new setting, drawn up for the City of London's court of common council, Sir William Holford, professor of town planning at the University of London, declared himself against "any changes which tended to drain life away from the precinct." Said he: "It is too late to attempt for St. Paul's what Bernini...
Away with Formality. What Holford's new plan would give St. Paul's (see cut) is more breathing space than the cathedral has ever had before, within a setting of modern business buildings. Main features: i) a paved forecourt, 100 yards wide, before St. Paul's west portal; 2) realigned streets, to provide a sweeping, unbroken expanse of lawn (and possibly a fountain) in place of St. Paul's present traffic-cluttered southeast churchyard; 3) a plan for varying the heights of surrounding buildings, among them a 23-story office building farther down Ludgate Hill, while...
...council began weighing the merits of Holford's proposal, the Times rumbled: "The case against a formal design for the setting of St. Paul's has not been satisfactorily made out." But on the whole, Londoners seemed more pleased than disappointed that the new setting fell short of matching the grandeur that is Rome. Commented the London Observer: "The Anglican Church is rather different. So is the forecourt of St. Paul's; it is the place where the Dean and the Mayor say 'How d'ye do' to the Queen...
...Holford, who is professor of Town Planning at University College in London, is England's leading city planner. He played a large part in the reconstruction of London after the last war. Formerly technical advisor to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, he has designed a great number of private homes and industrial buildings...