Dome

View of the formal gardens terminating The Mall; Blore’s best-known but least characteristic work was the completion of Buckingham Palace in 1832-1850 following the dismissal of George IV’s architect, John Nash, for extravagance. Blore was given the Buckingham Palace commission by the Office of Works because of his reputation for cheapness. The Builder (28 Aug 1847) remarked of his new front ‘[it] does not pretend to grandeur, and magnificence, scarcely to dignity’ and few regretted its refacing by Aston Webb in 1912-1913. Albert, the Prince Consort, entrusted the south-west wing to James Pennethorne. One of Webb’s most prominent urban-planning schemes in London was the Queen Victoria Memorial Scheme, won in limited competition in 1901, in which he widened and replanted the Mall in the fashion of a Parisian boulevard. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 7/16/2010)