London Open House Weekend - Saturday
One of the highlights of my London calendar, Open House weekend!
I couldn't partake last year due to completing my dissertation, so was looking forward to going out and about discovering again. Unfortunately the weather wasn't too good for this year, so instead of my original intention of doing one day by myself to see buildings that didn't interest friends so much (ie modern architecture!), we decided that traipsing around in the rain would be more fun in the company of friends, so we tagged along to the itinerary planned by Heather, which happened to include a good few modern buildings this year anyway.
First stop was the Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish square. A series of georgian properties, which were purchased by Lady Cowdray for the RCN to use as their headquarters in the 1920a, when they were combined to create a single building, leaving certain attributes intact, such as the beautiful tromp l'oeil painted staircase.
The building was an interesting mix of old and modern, with georgian, art-deco and more current day features
Next stop was the Photographers Gallery - a warehouse just off Oxford Street, refurbished in 2012 to rehouse the gallery from its former, rather claustrophobic location near Leicester Square. Not much to say about the building itself, all pretty functional for its purpose, but I rather enjoyed the Alex Prager exhibition on the upper floors, featuring hyper-realistic crowd scene set-ups, looking like something from a 1970s film
We carried on in the rain to the French Protestant church, where I remembered this was the Aston Webb designed building which was on my list to visit (as he designed a number of buildings at Imperial College too!). I loved his style, an art-deco take on medieval gothic, which almost made it look a little cartoonish fantasy. A beautiful church, the detail of the stonework negating any need for elaborate ornamentation or stained glass
(I used to pass this building so often and never knew it was a church!)
and now for a bit of modern residential architecture, a stones throw of where I used to work when I first moved to London (some nostalgia here!)
The Layered Gallery was a georgian house modernised in 2016 with an innovative extension that allowed for the display of the owners art collection in a small space by using a series of metal overlapping frames, which could be moved to change the artworks on display.
This extension hung over a beautiful little fern clad courtyard and its geometric style made me think of japanese screens.
the interior featured a mix of old and new
trying to give an idea of how the gallery works here:
the biggest surprise was at the end of this gallery - a cleverly concealed toilet!
Although one would have to be a bit of an exhibitionist to use it
my favourite spot, a beautiful sun terrace at the top
converted Georgian properties seemed to be a bit of a theme for today, next up being the Ecole Jeannine Manuel, a private French-English school on Bedford Square which comprised of 3 properties beautifully converted in 2015
I took a few staircase photos ....
The next spot was a bit of a contrast - the Impact Hub, Kings Cross. A grade II listed former warehouse, with an interesting roof structure, converted in 2015 to provide working hubs for small businesses, entrepreneurs and the like. A lively mash up of modern, industrial and naturalistic materials, creating a series of different working spaces and meeting areas.
It wouldn't be LOH if we didn't face one queue and get turned away! And this was the case for the new Aga Khan building where mysteriously they closed the queue at 3.30 despite being advertised as open until 6pm. We didn't want to finish the day on a low point, so decided to look up the Scientology church which the guide at Impact told us about ..... not sure if she made a mistake or if we misheard/got confused but what we ended up at was actually a Christian Science church!
The Eleventh Church of Christ, Scientist was completed in 2015, converting an old charity shop in a building dating back to the 1850's. A beautiful, minimal and tranquil space was created, making use of natural light and consistent timberwork throughout the building
the volunteers were very pleasant and evidently very devout although I found their beliefs to be somewhat extreme and had to leave the room when the guide started talking about how Jesus healed the blind through healing their thoughts ..... having grown up with my gran who was blind but also a Christian, the idea that her blindness endured due to her thoughts not being healed was somewhat insulting.
Anyway, this visit pretty much drew the day to a close, although Rob and i weren't quite ready to stop for dinner just yet so we dashed over to see the Wellcome Trust building, as the final one still open in our area. As it turned out it was actually their newish admin building which was open, an added bonus as I'd not visited that yet! Designed by Hopkins Architects in 2014, its main features were the atrium which ran the length of the building and the massive sculpture by Heatherwick at the end - I've gone past this so many times and not knew what it was!
we were allowed up to the terrace on the 5th floor to see the building in greater detail and look out over the rainy view of London's rooftops
We were thinking of nipping to the pub to see if anyone was left there but a coffee and sit-down at the Wellcome Centre called to us, so we ended our day there with a much needed rest and grabbed some groceries on the way home to make dinner instead of having to think of where to dine out.
Enter your cut contents here.
I've been fairly restained in my photo selection in this post, so the full gallery can be seen here.
Save
I couldn't partake last year due to completing my dissertation, so was looking forward to going out and about discovering again. Unfortunately the weather wasn't too good for this year, so instead of my original intention of doing one day by myself to see buildings that didn't interest friends so much (ie modern architecture!), we decided that traipsing around in the rain would be more fun in the company of friends, so we tagged along to the itinerary planned by Heather, which happened to include a good few modern buildings this year anyway.
First stop was the Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish square. A series of georgian properties, which were purchased by Lady Cowdray for the RCN to use as their headquarters in the 1920a, when they were combined to create a single building, leaving certain attributes intact, such as the beautiful tromp l'oeil painted staircase.
The building was an interesting mix of old and modern, with georgian, art-deco and more current day features
Next stop was the Photographers Gallery - a warehouse just off Oxford Street, refurbished in 2012 to rehouse the gallery from its former, rather claustrophobic location near Leicester Square. Not much to say about the building itself, all pretty functional for its purpose, but I rather enjoyed the Alex Prager exhibition on the upper floors, featuring hyper-realistic crowd scene set-ups, looking like something from a 1970s film
We carried on in the rain to the French Protestant church, where I remembered this was the Aston Webb designed building which was on my list to visit (as he designed a number of buildings at Imperial College too!). I loved his style, an art-deco take on medieval gothic, which almost made it look a little cartoonish fantasy. A beautiful church, the detail of the stonework negating any need for elaborate ornamentation or stained glass
(I used to pass this building so often and never knew it was a church!)
and now for a bit of modern residential architecture, a stones throw of where I used to work when I first moved to London (some nostalgia here!)
The Layered Gallery was a georgian house modernised in 2016 with an innovative extension that allowed for the display of the owners art collection in a small space by using a series of metal overlapping frames, which could be moved to change the artworks on display.
This extension hung over a beautiful little fern clad courtyard and its geometric style made me think of japanese screens.
the interior featured a mix of old and new
trying to give an idea of how the gallery works here:
the biggest surprise was at the end of this gallery - a cleverly concealed toilet!
Although one would have to be a bit of an exhibitionist to use it
my favourite spot, a beautiful sun terrace at the top
converted Georgian properties seemed to be a bit of a theme for today, next up being the Ecole Jeannine Manuel, a private French-English school on Bedford Square which comprised of 3 properties beautifully converted in 2015
I took a few staircase photos ....
The next spot was a bit of a contrast - the Impact Hub, Kings Cross. A grade II listed former warehouse, with an interesting roof structure, converted in 2015 to provide working hubs for small businesses, entrepreneurs and the like. A lively mash up of modern, industrial and naturalistic materials, creating a series of different working spaces and meeting areas.
It wouldn't be LOH if we didn't face one queue and get turned away! And this was the case for the new Aga Khan building where mysteriously they closed the queue at 3.30 despite being advertised as open until 6pm. We didn't want to finish the day on a low point, so decided to look up the Scientology church which the guide at Impact told us about ..... not sure if she made a mistake or if we misheard/got confused but what we ended up at was actually a Christian Science church!
The Eleventh Church of Christ, Scientist was completed in 2015, converting an old charity shop in a building dating back to the 1850's. A beautiful, minimal and tranquil space was created, making use of natural light and consistent timberwork throughout the building
the volunteers were very pleasant and evidently very devout although I found their beliefs to be somewhat extreme and had to leave the room when the guide started talking about how Jesus healed the blind through healing their thoughts ..... having grown up with my gran who was blind but also a Christian, the idea that her blindness endured due to her thoughts not being healed was somewhat insulting.
Anyway, this visit pretty much drew the day to a close, although Rob and i weren't quite ready to stop for dinner just yet so we dashed over to see the Wellcome Trust building, as the final one still open in our area. As it turned out it was actually their newish admin building which was open, an added bonus as I'd not visited that yet! Designed by Hopkins Architects in 2014, its main features were the atrium which ran the length of the building and the massive sculpture by Heatherwick at the end - I've gone past this so many times and not knew what it was!
we were allowed up to the terrace on the 5th floor to see the building in greater detail and look out over the rainy view of London's rooftops
We were thinking of nipping to the pub to see if anyone was left there but a coffee and sit-down at the Wellcome Centre called to us, so we ended our day there with a much needed rest and grabbed some groceries on the way home to make dinner instead of having to think of where to dine out.
Enter your cut contents here.
I've been fairly restained in my photo selection in this post, so the full gallery can be seen here.
Save