EUSTON ON FIRE

 

North Gower Street. Some confusion by the AI here. The "Festival of Britain style" building is by an unknown architect, not Maxwell Fry, who was responsible for the block to the South of the entrance to Tolmers Square, dated to 1940.

To complicate things further it seems that Fry did build in a less-than fully modernist way, and he used a version of that curvy entrance canopy in his work in Nigeria. So there are two interesting examples of British Modern here which may both be hostels for young women. Bear in mind that UCL was one of the first colleges to offer degrees to female students.

 

One version of the Modernist myth holds that it was necessary to make a clean break with the past. English culture on the other hand is well known for its ability to use compromise to ward off the violence of outright revolution.

So it's possible to trace a path from the chaos of Victorian Revivals, via the Arts and Crafts movement, stripped Classicism, the homely compromises of the Festival of Britain style, to the genuine modernists like Fry.

 

Continuing with Maxwell Fry / Jane Drew. An early project in the classical mode in the seaside town of Margate. So many of the early modernists had a thorough grounding in classicism, to their benefit. Sadly, when I started at UCL , classicism was barely mentioned, but to be fair, I have only warmed to the idea of acquiring a deep knowledge of the Classical Orders in the last couple of decades.

There is that wiggly canopy again. Who introduced that into the modern canon? Perhaps that is obscure. Ramsay Hall was quite close to UCL. I'm pretty sure I knew someone who lived there at some stage. Not a building I have ever been fond of. Difficult to judge the crematorium from this one picture.

I guess the main message coming across to me is that, whether you take Fry's career, or the trajectory of modernism in the UK from say 1920 to 1970 when I was an earnest young Architecture student, There is a beginning in Stripped Classicism followed be a gradual transition to the Modernism of Corb, Mies et al.

 

I have always liked Euston Fire Station. Arts and Crafts ideas expressed over a six or seven storey building. The extremely tall chimneys and oriel windows are definitely Arts and Crafts in feeling. The ground floor drifts more towards classical.

Whatever. I love the balanced asymmetry, the use of materials, the unity with variety. What's more it's a local authority job. You. Might have expected something safer, more boring. Great to see it being kept in good condition.

 

 

Is the plumbing original I wonder, and under the control of the architect? I certainly enjoy the "pipework as sculpture" As a student in say 1970 I really had little idea how plumbing worked, but the networks of cast-iron pipes at the back of London buildings spoke to my artistic sensibilities. I always wanted to do a series of paintings based on these aerial roots of the institutional bathrooms and toilets within.

 

 

 

UCL Revisited

 

Broken bond again. This is at the rear of the Wellcome Building on Euston Road an area that was very familiar to me as an undergraduate student at UCL from 1969 to 1972.

There is a lot of interesting history connected to this building, designed by Septimus Warwick around 1930. This is very much the backside of the scheme, but still carefully detailed. The main facades wrapping around two sides are clad in Portland stone in a fairly austere version of the Ionic order. But let's get back to the brickwork.

English Bond with a three-quarter bat resulting from the width of the window openings. Why wasn't it designed to a brick module? Beats me. Could be connected to the soldier courses above and below. Or maybe the architect was following some other logic, focusing on proportions without regard to the brick size.

Maybe the brick was substituted for stone during construction for cost reasons.

 

Whatever the case you have to agree that the building is in good condition as it approaches a hundred years old. I don't want to say that this is better or worse than the modernist work of Le Corbusier and others around the same time. Both reflect different aspects of our shared history. Taking sides in retrospect seems futile to me.

I just enjoy trying to get my head inside the past with all its subtle complexity. Due credit to all involved from the architect (and client) to the bricklayers and other trades.

I spotted this building from just outside Waterloo Station. Now a dormitory for an American Catholic University's London branch.

Designed by Sir Charles Nicholson in 1905 in a somewhat eclectic style. The distinctive glazed tiles were also a feature of the interior: Doulton picture tiles depicting Nursery Rhymes. 

 

Were we worse off when this kind of Hospital provision was dependent on charitable contributions? In some ways yes. But you can't really separate this out from the macro changes to society. Opinions will differ. Much has improved. Some good things have been lost.

Certainly it's good to have buildings like this to remind us of our complex past and the determined efforts of some to provide for the less fortunate.

 

 

SINGAPORE & LONDON

 

Boat Key, Singapore. This is an AI reimagining of a low quality photo that I took in 1997 during a whistle-stop tour of Singapore and KL. That photo was digitally captured rather crudely in 2003 before I left for Dubai.

The trip was intended to give me inspiration for the only office tower I ever designed, what became Century Towers. I have worked on taller projects since then, but not as lead designer.

I know these types of buildings as Shophouses now, a distinctive tradition all up the coast from Singapore to Malaysia. I think the watercolour treatment conveys the picturesque quality of the buildings at the time.

Completely cleaned up and "restored" now, which is good of course for the inhabitants, but inevitably some of the romance is lost.

 

On Thursday I took the train into London for the first time since I moved back to UK. It was an eventful day, mostly positive but with a twist at the end.

I had a ticket through to Euston changing at Waterloo. This involves leaving the mainline station and walking across the road to the Underground. Naturally I was keeping a lookout for interesting buildings.

This church is Greek Revival. A reaction to the excesses of Victorian Gothic. Simple clean lines and sparse, stylised decoration. Everything is shallow relief and underplayed. St. John's Waterloo built in the early 1820s and designed by Francis Octavius Bedford.

 

 

 

I spotted this building from just outside Waterloo Station. Now a dormitory for an American Catholic University's London branch.

Designed by Sir Charles Nicholson in 1905 in a somewhat eclectic style. The distinctive glazed tiles were also a feature of the interior: Doulton picture tiles depicting Nursery Rhymes.

Were we worse off when this kind of Hospital provision was dependent on charitable contributions? In some ways yes. But you can't really separate this out from the macro changes to society. Opinions will differ. Much has improved. Some good things have been lost.

Certainly it's good to have buildings like this to remind us of our complex past and the determined efforts of some to provide for the less fortunate.

North Gower Street. I used to live in the double fronted house, top left. I was in a tiny little box room, right below the front door. It's just up the road from UCL main quad which was how you got in to the Architecture department (School of Environmental Studies)

It has since moved down the road and reverted to being The Bartlett. As I write this I'm sitting in St Pancras Church, a splendid Greek Revival edifice, completel with Caryatids. Those were heady days. Coming of age story.

I'm here for a reunion. Not sure how many I will know but the memories are already flooding back.