London Architecture Guide

I’m a huge fan of Westminster underground station. It’s got a really human use of concrete, the way English brutalism does when money is actually spent on it (instead of using it as a watered down style to save money on housing estates). But something about the location and handling of volumes in a vertical void: it gives off this really amazing feel that somehow seems to express an Orwellian mood + the 90s Blairite spirit/culture of Cool Brittania, and yet it isn’t unpleasant to be in or use. There’s a film of Richard III from ’95 that got filmed in the Tate’s Turbine Hall; it’s very cool- but if it had been made a few years later, Westminster Underground might have been better. The project is by Michael and Patty Hopkins- they’re pretty well established in the UK, but in the past decade or so have really started moving overseas (including some good work at Rice Uni).

They’ve also just finished the Olympic Velodrome- the whole Olympic site in Stratford is worth trying to see, or as much as you can anyway, especially time permitting- it’s definitely a trek out there. Most of it’s still under scaffolding or behind hoardings, but there’s a bus route on diversion that goes through the site, and on the East London greenway there’s a ‘View Tube’ that, well, does what it says on the label. Might not be worth the trip out though.

For old and stone: Nicholas Hawksmoor’s churches are pretty outstanding, if you haven’t seen them already. In some ways, he’s a much better version of Wren (or at least the architect’s architect version- and a lot of recent scholarship on their design processes is suggesting that a lot of Wren’s best detailing etc is in Hawksmoor’s hand). Personally, I think Christ Church Spitalfields is Hawksmoor’s best, precisely because it was in a poorer area where it didn’t have to follow ‘taste’- he does some cool play with massing/perspective/expectation that even 400 years on is still really surprising.

Dulwich Picture Gallery is probably the best place in London to see it, but Rick Mather and his studio are doing really excellent work when it comes to contemporary insertions in historic fabric. Most of their best work is in Oxford/Cambridge, but Dulwich is good- a bid like a more practical/less mystical version of Chipperfield Neues Museum, but I guess that’s possible when you aren’t having to contend with the history/politics of Berlin.

And if you’ve been an arch student in London, you’ve probably already seen it- but John Soane’s museum really is in a world of its own.

Oh- don’t think I could get away with leaving this out, but most of Eric Parry’s work as well: I’d choose either 60 Threadneedle or 30 Finsbury Sq (nothing too original on that choice).

Exhibitions- if you get here before the 18th, Morphosis at the RA is definitely worth it (and I went in mostly pessimistic, with a sense of dread about the shortlist for the MFA Houston expansion), and then Zumthor’s Serpentine will still be up when you’re here; worth seeing, but I don’t know about how well he’s translated coming down off the mountain into London.

Hope some of this list helps to throw in an extra stop or two in what I’m imagining will be a pretty rushed 5 days- and a pub trip for your London-based readers sounds exciting; count me in, when you’ve got the list running? Possibly suggest- Gordon’s next to Charing X station- opened in the 1890s, it’s a wine bar -but that name gives off the wrong idea-, in these amazing cellars that must defy every fire code in the world (particularly this country’s), not great for those of us 6′+, but also has a huge terrace if the weather’s good. Can get very crowded very quickly though.

I wish Dallas was half as interesting and daring as London is architecturally. I envy your trip and the experience that comes with it.

I’m not a massive dullard, but that Swiss Re thing looks like a piece of equipment ladies use (it involves batteries). So if you’re planning to visit phallic symbols, I’m sure the Tower has a few.