TIME Inc.'s new office building in Britain, a seven-story structure* at the intersection of New Bond and Bruton Streets, in London's West End, has its formal opening this week. The informal opening took place in mid-December, when editorial, advertising and publishing employees started moving from their old quarters on Dean Street in the Soho district of London.

The primary aim of Architect Michael Rosenauer and Interior Designer Sir Hugh Casson was to combine architectural beauty with efficiency. As a result of Rosenauers rigid design economies, an impressive 86 1/2% of the total floor space is usable office area--an unusually high percentage for London buildings and a feature especially appreciated by British authorities, in the light of their austerity program. To save space, Rosenauer put two staircases (required by fire regulations) in the same stair well like the blades of a pair of scissors.

For the sculpture, interior design furniture and fittings, TIME Inc. Art Adviser Francis Brennan commissioned some of Britain's outstanding artists and craftsmen. Shortly after he had made his selections, three of them were awarded high professional honors: Designer Casson was knighted for his work in the Festival of Britain; Ben Nicholson, who painted a mural for the reception hall, won first prize in the Carnegie International Exhibition, and Geoffrey Clarke, who executed a symbolic sculpture for the reception room, was commissioned to do some of the stained-glass windows for the reconstructed Coventry Cathedral.

A permanent display in a ground-floor window deals with a subject of universal, but particularly British, interest--the weather. On a 26-sq.-ft. map, curved like a spinnaker, varicolored lights are projected to show what the weather is doing over an area of about 1,500,000 square miles (from Iceland to France). In the same window will be London weather forecasts, recording instruments for sunshine, temperature and humidity, and instruments to show atmospheric pressure and wind velocity and direction.

Another unusual map, in the reception room, has no continental outlines, but shows only the world's major routes of communication. Hand-tooled in Nigerian goatskin, the map covers nearly 350 square feet. The legend underneath it says, in part: "The map above you is not a fantasy. It is a factual design of one world man has built upon the earth. It is the particular world of international communication. No land masses appear here, nor oceans. For it is the very essence of communication to transcend these -- to render continents into carriers, seas into bridges . . . Here exposed is the nerve system of our century . . . Here are the navigators' great circle routes, the channels and the networks through which our thought flows, our news passes, our opinion gathers, and over which the end products of our energies are exchanged." Designed by J. Beresford-Evans, who specializes in technical and "difficult" designs and displays, the map was tooled by Edgar Turner.

Construction of TIME'S new building started in mid-1951, although most of the excavation had been done ten years earlier by Nazi bombs which left one of their largest craters at the building site. Underlying leases for the land, most of them drawn 20 or 30 years ago, run for 2,000 years. TIME'S lease on the building runs for 42 years. Long before then, we expect to extend the lease for many years to come.

Cordially yours,

* The British, who count the ground floor separately, consider it a six-story building.

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