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.