Andrew Ashdown
LONDON NOW:
An Odyssey Through the Nation's Capital
11. Clerkenwell
We start at Smithfield Market ‘Circle’ – spun round in the widening gyre ...
Try crossing this building site now! Farringdon Station the new Clapham Junction i’ the north but still with its early C20th facade of ivory tiled faience, memorial to the world’s first underground rail, of which this was the terminus. ‘METROPOLITAN RAILWAY: FARRINGDON & HIGH HOLBORN STATION’ in Roman lettering, all across and, round the corner, ‘PARCELS OFFICE’ (see also Baker Street → 21.Marylebone) with the triple keystoned granite arch, invoking Newgate. The two-span shed, deepest into London, mimics old Broad Street in style (→ 10.City 2) and Victoria (→ 1.Victoria) in use, with its two ‘sides’, Thameslink and Crossrail.
The dominant force – principal architectural and historical ley line, geomantic, divinatory, dowsing magnetic, sirenical force is exerted by the Charterhouse. The school moved out and this is all hospital stuff - St. Bartholomew’s Medical College - yet, on the map, still the footprint of the buildings, as if still there, as present as the Tower or Temple, an archaeological imprint, furrows in the ground (Whitehall Palace → 3.Whitehall), the complex dating to the 14th century, the Carthusian priory, 1371, suppressed 1537 rebuilt as someone’s house, typical of the kind of "large rambling 16th century mansion that once existed all round London.[i]" After 1611, an almshouse and school, endowed by Thomas Sutton. The almshouse still there under the name ‘Sutton's Hospital’ and what we see is post-war rebuild by Lord Mottistone & Paget (as per the City Temple → 6.Holborn).
CHARTERHOUSE SQUARE
Florin Court
‘Forgive me if this post seems at all self-indulgent (writes Josie Dick aka @TheLondonphile), but Florin Court is one of my favourite London buildings and I’m yet to write about it. Is it the luscious art deco curves, or the fact that it was home to Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot for much of the television series that draws me to these apartments? Probably a bit of both, to be honest…'
Many thanks to Josie Dick for digging this one out. 1936, by Guy Morgan ('Whitehaven Mansions to Poirot fans) in Art Deco / Moderne against the Tudor and Georgian buildings about, interior revamp by Hildebrand & Clicker.
St. John, Clerkenwell, a round church of 1185 then 16th century chapel, purchased by the 1711 Commissioners and placed within the ruins of the Priory of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. A tangled and fraught history which leaves little to glean, having been ’improved’ in 1845 by a ‘Mr. Griffith’.
Of the C12th Priory of St. John of Jerusalem all that remains is the crypt, stones echoing down the centuries. The best bet then is St. John’s Gate, though restored by Oldrid Scott (of that dynasty), et al, convincingly medieval (if you will allow yourself); better, at any rate, than London’s various failed arches (q.v.). All is revealed in the excellent Museum. Another eruption of limestone strata ... a reef.
These fragments ...
Just off St. John’s Square, (comfortably viewed from Benugo across St. John Street) a spot of old Venetian at No.27 (as was) in Clerkenwell Road, black brick front with Venetian style small round headed openings picked out in red brick over white Doric-style columns in the attic storey - all reminiscent of Aitchinson’s 59-61 Mark Lane (→ 8.City1), and perhaps also inspired by Ruskin. It's actually by Samuel Parr & Alfred Pope Strong, 1879.
Old Sessions House (or prefixed ‘Middlesex’), correctly now, Clerkenwell Conference Centre / Masonic Lodge. 1779-82 Thomas Rogers, enlarged, remodelled – improved (to great effect) by Frederick Hyde Pownall. The Portland stone, giant order of engaged Ionic columns and pediment, flanking pilasters, rusticated base pierced with round-arched openings: one can’t help seeing ‘Fishmongers’ or ‘Royal Mint’, ‘Senate House’ (Cambridge - there’s a Gibbs Surround). Much interest in the detail: reliefs by Nollekens, county ‘armorial scimitars’ in the tympanum and, inside, a double-height central hall, court room and gallery, central stairs, all enriched by Pownall. The hall triumphs: octagonally-coffered dome tiptoeing daintily on its supports, à la Stephen Walbrook, with foliaged spandrels, wall-negating roundels, more light from the lantern above. Available for hire.
Another spot of old Venetian worth peering through at: Prince Consort House Nos 109-11 Farringdon Road, superimposed rows of small arched openings. Now Crawford Solicitors.
St. James, Clerkenwell 1788-92, James Carr, which Jones & Woodward place in the tradition of Wren, Hawksmoor and Gibbs; the tower is certainly two cogs of St. Bride’s.
Peabody Trust Clerkenwell Close – severe artisans dwellings 1884 ( see also below ↓). Not bad, quite handsome really. Well, they’re scrubbed and the varied colour brick and segmental windows provide an aesthetic is rich in association, rich in the context of later development; just as St. Katherine’s Dock and all the other warehousing is chic.
Finsbury Bank for Savings 1 Sekforde Street where Dickens banked (allegedly). 1840 by Alfred Bartholomew, who ‘excelled more at writing than architecture’ (Bannister Fletcher, Gwilt the Younger) this, according to the Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, his only building of note. Splendid frieze of incised lettering to both storeys; splendid Venetian (or Palladian) windows inset in round-headed niches, a touch of Cockerell (Liverpool, Manchester) or, indeed, Wren (St. Lawrence Jewry), the whizzing rustication off the doorways, Hawksmoor (Woolnoth). And white, all white. Egyptian motifs reflect contemporary archaeological discoveries (see also Mansion House → 8.City).
p.s. Cleo’s Needle was donated in 1819 in thanks for Nelson’s victory at the Nile in 1798 and Abecrombie at Alexandria in 1801; it didn’t finally get in place till 1878 (→ 5.Strand).
Splendid ‘60s Finsbury Estate, with Michael Cliffe and Jospeh Trotter (sic) Houses all white and renovated.
In similar preserved archaeological vein:
Finsbury Health Centre an International Modern icon – Corbusier, say (Palace of the Soviets), the zealous functionality, distribution of parts. For myself, Luther House, Dar-es-Salaam. A white glass and concrete catamaran (glass bricks too). The year was 1938, the architects, the Lubetkin émigrés. The Kentish Town Health Centre by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, 2009 (→15.Camden) is even called ‘a Finsbury Health Centre for the C21st’. With its spread wings, form following, transparently exemplifying function, all curves and angles, it was nonetheless trumped by Impington Village College by Fry and Gropius in 1936[i], two years after the Bauhaus designer had given the Nazis the slip.
Gazzano House, with Gazzano’s, Roseberry Avenue by Amin Taha, 2004: Cor-ten steel panelling from recycled metal (highly durable), rust idiom, rectangular openings punched out randomly, or so appears.
Mount Pleasant Sorting Office, Islington – wonderful assortment of buildings (see my ‘Amorphous Buildings rant under Waterloo Station → 31.South Bank) now planned for airy fairy whimsy of gardens in the manner of the ludicrous (Duncan Bannatyne word!) Garden Bridge blandished by the fragrant Lady Joanna ‘Ghurkha’ Lumley. The 1934 wing surely could be converted to apartments, or some such, retaining the distinction it brings to the area.
Church of the Holy Redeemer, Clerkenwell – 1887, J.D. Sedding . A vision of Umbria in London brick and stone. Like Holy Trinity Sloane Street (→20.Chelsea) all big guns firing – big effects, giant boxy forms - in this case a super-scaled, cavernous pediment, big roundels, upper stage of red brick and stone banding, giant gold inscribed letters ‘CHRISTO LIBERATORI’, in a predictively post-Modern aura which must have had a similar impact to that pumping station in the Docks (→ 9.East). And within? Baroque richness – supposedly Santo Spiirto but why not San Lorenzo? A Father Willis organ, F.W. Pomeroy baldacchino, stations of the Cross, Chapels to St. Mary Mag and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.... but this is Anglican. Oh well, yes. Of course. A man in black cape head to foot greeted us ... and we were fooled by waft of incense and grilled confessionals.
Here (at 22-24 Exmouth Street) stood Spa Fields Chapel built by evangelical Lady Huntingdon who was busy in Brighton and elsewhere. 1770, demolished 1879 and itself replacing the earlier and more sanguine Rotunda or ‘Little Pantheon’ in Spa Fields.
Between Holy Redeemer & Northants Institute:
Finsbury Town Hall 1895-9, G. Evans Vaughan – big square Elizabethan mullioned and transomed windows in walls of lovely fiery red brick. Wrought iron and smoked glass art nouveau entrance canopy, fabulous interiors, the hall with elliptical vaulted plaster ceiling. Yet another ‘venue’ for those corporate shindigs – weddings popular.
Thames Water Buildings First this immense pentagonal block (recall Old War Office → 5.Whitehall) Beaux Arts Classical and by Austen Hall 1915-20 but rather the Art Deco 'moderne' of 1936-38 by Stanley Hall and Easton & Robertson (John Murray Easton was designer) - nice curved staircase hall a feature both externally and within, lit by acres of glazed brick with a blue ceiling and figure of Aquarius. In sum, a ‘simple but powerful design in the modern spirit of Charles Holden or Thomas Tail’ (English Heritage).
Sadlers Wells Theatre 1998 a fairly externally with apparently modest production values: plain brick with no high jinks and one of those steel-rod-and-cable-stayed glass walls – messy. Beneath the auditorium (1500 seats), access to the ancient wells. Architect RHWL (Renton Howard Wood Levin Architects), acoustics by Arup Acoustics.
Spa Green Estate between Roseberry Avenue and St. John Street, more International Modern archaeology: Lubetkin and Tecton again.
On up to:
THE ANGEL, UPPER STREET and CAMDEN PASSAGE for coffee and retail therapy before retracing our steps back down to:
The former Northampton Institute, Finsbury by E.W. Mountford, clutters successfully and grandiosely into its corner site off the square, red brick, banded in stone with a mannered pre-Edwardian complexity akin to Aston Webb’s Chancellors Court at Edgbaston (1905) or (as Jones & Woodward say) Townshend. See also his St. Olave’s School (→ 31.South Bank).
City University completes Northampton Square Garden, 1960-76 Shepherd Robson (who did the NW corner of Finsbury Circus → 10.City 2), a Brutalist triumph crushing this crucial verdant space.
St. Luke, Old Street 1722-33 John James, is the high point, literally, of the neighbourhood, the fluted obelisk tower attributed to Hawksmoor. A 1711 Commissioners’ church, one of a pair with the demolished St. John, Horsleydown (directly north of the Barbican). Since 2003 ‘LSO St. Lukes’, glass-boxed by Levitt Bernstein for my favourite orchestra. Sir Colin! Alas, no longer.
Parasitic. Miscegenous. Cuckoo in the nest.
Golden Lane Housing Estate
Well, we’ve come back to it – our pondering at the Barbican ( → 10b.City 2). Golden yellow 'Muro' glass in aluminium frames. Bush-hammered concrete and pick-hammering. The architects’ attention-grabbing sally which landed the bigger job. 1955-62, dominated by ‘Great Arthur’, its point block with now lime green fascia panels and thin uprights it still has that matchstick feel of the ‘50s architect’s model but now the sweeping rooftop canopy (for the lift mechanism and water tanks) in need of a clean. The later, curving form of Crescent House (on Goswell Road) already shows a change of approach. One feels a sense of grim déjà vu in the empty soulless inner city suburban milieu – and walking in same with RA. 554 flats in all (couples and singles only) as against the 2113 for the Barb. As Allinson says, the main difference, really, is the lack of elevated ‘pedway’. This where the RA began ... his ‘career’ – too late for the Barbican, as we saw (→ 10.City 1).
In FORTUNE STREET GARDENS we enter a remarkable villagey space, the reality-challenging obelisk of St. Lukes still there, peeping in and out of the verdure. The Golden Lane Campus (as opposed to ‘Estate’) is a more recent (2008) white presence on the south side of gardens by Nicholas Hare, looks as if it’s always been there, though a contrasting in both form and function with its neighbour. A combination of three different schools[i], concrete-framed ‘plateau’ at ground floor level with a series of courtyards which furnish light and ventilation to the classrooms - Arne Jacobsen, Munkgård - and steel-framed ‘pods’ (oh, um). Externally, rather over-dramatic white ‘split-face blockwork’ there to frame or mount (mat) the loud primary coloured laminate panels, a sort of graffiti prophylactic.
It’s ironic, this juxtaposition that furnishes comparison with the efforts of a century earlier. Peabody Housing admittedly comes in different varieties: we saw Clerkenwell Close (above ↑); there’s also Columbia Road (Bethnal Green/Shoreditch →12.NE Wedge) rather good; Greenman Street (Islington → 12. NE Wedge), less so – both H.A. Darbishire and these, in Chequer, Dufferin, Whitecross and Roscoe Streets, of 1870 (no named architect[ii]), grim and warehouse-like, a reproach to that ever-present view of St. Lukes. Stripes of differently hued pale brick: one wonders why they bothered. For to see how things have come on, see Niall McLaughlin’s work in Silvertown (→ 9.East - Docks).
On the OLD STREET ROUNDABOUT (‘Silicon Circus’) - note the double bulge of Bézier Buildings (a Carbuncle Cup nominee reminiscent of Lillian Towers, Nairobi, the ‘Maize Cob’! or that one building on the Thames, Riverside House (→ 31. South Bank) and the ‘60s blue glass point block / slab & podium at No.207....
n.b. this was 1967; Fountain Hse (→ 10.City1) was 1957; Marathon House (→ 21. Marylebone) 1960; 199 Sloane Street (→ 24. Knightsbridge) 1963-65. Saved by its line of plane trees (a wonderful amenity) and the cylindrical Shoreditch Grind coffee bar.
Turn up to the wonderful green verdigris domed fiery red terracotta ‘Imperial Hall’ Former Methodist Leysian Mission 1901-6, and dated 1903, bomb damage made good in 1955. Bradshaw and Gass. Polished granite piers to ground floor, rear elevations of white brick (DSM Standard Bank!!) mansard roofs of Welsh slate. Detail derived from late-Gothic influenced by Art Nouveau, haracteristic of Edwardian Nonconformism. Within, glass by W.J.Pearce of Manchester. Now flats.
All this area being redeveloped.
Here were the Dance (Elder & Youngers) lunatic asylums / hospitals of St. Lukes 1751 and 1786, the latter at 500 ft length one of the architectural gems of London’.
MINI – MANHATTAN
More tall blocks on CITY ROAD north of the roundabout (i.e. HACKNEY)
Eagle House 27 storeys
apartment block at 145 City Rd, 39 storeys, 473 ft – laminate like RCA NY - MAKE
apartment block with angled windows – 10 storeys
as signalled on Twitter 18 Apr 2014 Andrea Klettner @aklettner
apartment block for Groveworld – 29 storeys
apartment block at 261 City Rd – SOM
The Lexicon – 36 storeys
The Canaletto, 259 City Rd – 31 storeys – UN Studio
planned:
31 & 41 storeys - the Berkeley Group
And here also Moorfields Eye Hospital
with
Richard Desmond Children’s Eye Centre – Penoyre & Prasad, 2007 – an astonishing re-thinking of the treatment centre, the aluminium louvers swinging in on tensioned cables remind one of a mobile to aid sleep. They’re pink and that links to this other thing ....the glass box projecting from the main, the sort of useless space that reminds me of Cranfield University’s silly College of Aeronautics Boardroom cantilevered out to a distance calibrated to be within eardrum bursting reach of the revving jet-engines (see also Unicorn Children’s Theatre →19.South Bank). Here, it’s a waiting room.
Wesley’s Chapel, Jones & Woodward point out, is not the ‘architecture of Methodism’ but a standard Georgian box altered by Victorians
BUNHILL FIELDS are nearby with the creator of Man Friday and the poetic slave liberator, as we saw earlier (→10.City 2]