Dome

Equestrian statue of WWI French military commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929) (by Georges Malissard, 1930) immediately across from Victoria Station; Cundy carried out what was probably his most notable contribution to architecture during the early 1860s, with the rebuilding of the Grosvenor Gardens area immediately west of the new Victoria Station. After a limited competition in 1864, he was given the job of planning the layout and designing the façades of several large stone ranges of terraced houses. In part taking his cue from J. T. Knowles’s new Grosvenor Hotel, Cundy adopted the French style of Louis Tullius Joachim Visconti’s and Hector-Martin Lefuel’s New Louvre (1852-1871), and his terraces had Parisian ornament and high mansard roofs with iron roof crestings. They also sported colored slate roof coverings and terracotta cornices as a nod in the direction of High Victorian polychromy. The gardens consist of two triangular plots; although Lower Grosvenor Gardens have always been open to the public, Upper Grosvenor Gardens were only opened to the public in 2000. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 6/15/2015)