Alas, poor Doric will spoil RAF memorial in the park

Published: 28 May, 2010

• NOW that the RAF Bomber Command memorial in Green Park has been granted planning permission by Westminster City Council, would the architects please reconsider their proposed Doric order.

The Doric order does not really work at this scale and is in any case still redolent of 20th-century totalitarian tyranny.

On the other hand, the Ionic order, possibly that of the Temple on the Ilissus, Athens, could prove the more elegant approach of a democracy.

It would reflect Decimus Burton’s distinguished Ionic screen stranded on the far side of the traffic squalor of Hyde Park Corner created so many years ago by those other tyrants of the 20th century – highway engineers.

Please withhold my name and address as I have no wish to be harassed by classical pedants.
DAEDALUS
Name and address supplied