Sir Hugh Casson, 42, who made his name (and his knighthood) by supervising the architectural preparations for the 1951 Festival of Britain, is in charge of decorating London's Westminster section for Queen Elizabeth's coronation. A solemn-looking man, he has taken lighthearted femininity as his motif. "After all," says he, "it will be a woman's day." Reproduced on the opposite page are some of the working sketches which he and his associates have prepared.
OXFORD STREET, one of the world's busiest shopping thoroughfares, will be decorated with crests of shoemaking, hat-making, umbrella-making and other crafts.
ST. JAMES'S STREET posed a problem.
Because it is "a royal street with St.
James's Palace in the background," Sir Hugh & Co. decided that crowns should be its theme—but "some like tiaras and some like pike puddings. We think the crown we used (a sort of Coeur de Lion coronet) is really the prettiest of them all." PICCADILLY'S "rather furtive entrance on to Bond Street" was another problem: "We wanted to draw attention to it, and we decided on flowers. But the Bond Street people felt ... we should have a royal symbol. So now we'll have trumpets." THE STRAND'S decorations are a reminder that Maypole festivities used to be held nearby.
HAYMARKET'S theme derives from the row of shipping offices along Cockspur Street at its base. Explains Sir Hugh: "We decided the thing to do was to dress them to look like a fleet under review. We're making a bank of naval signals and spotlighting them . . ." WHITEHALL will have a military air, with Horse Guard helmets topping the lampposts, and breastplates below.
Cost of old Westminster's new Coronation bonnets: $140,000. Sir Hugh aims to make them fit for a fair young queen.