Why Admiralty Arch is Different from Other Triumphal Arches in Europe

London’s Admiralty Arch has always impressed me. After all it is one of the triumphal buildings that you can see in European capitals like Rome, Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg. They all throw on you glory, magnificence, and hegemonic glance. So does Admiralty Arch. What hat is peculiar about Admiralty Arch for me is that it always titillates to know that it screens the Buckingham habitat behind.

I barely think of the fact that the building itself was to accommodate residence and Admiralty offices. In fact, the building was originally designed as the residence of admiral and the administrative units of the Admiralty.

It does set a screen before the court life that makes you curious about what the Buckingham people do on the campus; but it also invites you inside. The dominance of round lines on the surface makes the building distinctive. The other triumphal arches in Europe predominantly have rectangular lines that look more formal and distancing. Even the strips over the three arches do not follow straight lines. They rather tend to be light beams expanding the borderlines of arches. However, the most significant feature of Admiralty Arch is that the building itself is round. It looks like a slice of circle. When you walk towards the building with your eyes focusing in the mall, two features of the building embrace, or, even absorb you: the concave shape that you immediately feel through three horizontal lines between the floors; and the oval shape of arches. Since you are on move, altogether they give you a sense of concentric circles. You feel like you are enclosed by circles that hypnotise you. This is how glory, magnificence, and hegemony translate into your emotions. You do not only admire the architecture and design. There is no relief on the surface depicting human figures that symbolically conveys you the glory. With Admiralty Arch, you just feel it.

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