Architecture Update: Return of the pink Pancras

WHEN St Pancras Chambers, the former Midland Hotel fronting St Pancras station, London, is fully cleaned, passengers and passers-by are in for a surprise. Not only will the walls reappear in their original salmon-pink brickwork, but the roof tiles, blackened by pea-soupers and diesel exhaust, are to be replaced by sea-green slates. The original Victorian colour scheme will come as a shock to those born this century; it will also put the new British Library - still being built alongside - very much in the shade.