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Samuel Hughes Profile picture
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20 Apr, 5 tweets, 3 min read
Much controversy at the moment about the plans for a new court complex on Fleet Street. Left is today, right is the proposal.
Two good early 20C buildings and one bad postmodernist one would be lost on Fleet St.
An enormous brutalist building and lovely early Georgian townhouse would be lost on Salisbury Square (these are rather approximate before-and-afters).
Two new public ways through the middle of the block would be opened.
There is plenty of good about this project - this is not a heroes and villains affair. But the cost in terms of architectural heritage does seem very steep.

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More from @SCP_Hughes

Samuel Hughes Profile picture
19 Apr
Followers of this account will remember the demolished Celanese House on Hanover Square, by which the GLA was so little impressed. Today, a short thread dedicated to its architect, the long-forgotten Stanley Gordon Jeeves (1888-1964).
His most striking work is Palladium House (1929, with Raymond Hood) on Argyll Street in London, a building that shows how to be arresting and even somewhat provocative, while fundamentally respecting the surrounding streetscape.
He designed several other major office and public buildings in London, working in the Beaux Arts or Art Deco styles common in England in the interwar period.
Read 4 tweets
Samuel Hughes Profile picture
17 Apr
One of the most interesting New Urbanist neighbourhoods is Jakriborg, by a high-speed rail link to Malmö. Within Jakriborg, cars are almost wholly excluded and private gardens are small, allowing an urban fabric that is more closely woven than in comparable recent developments. ImageImage
This is perhaps best seen not in the much-photographed main street but in the network of pedestrian alleys, something nearly unexampled in residential developments for a long time. ImageImageImageImage
I have doubts about a number of features of Jakriborg, notably the rather weak distinction between fronts and backs visible in several of the above photographs. It should also be acknowledged that there is a car park outside the town, so it is not truly car independent.
Read 4 tweets
Samuel Hughes Profile picture
13 Apr
Hanover Square, 2012 and 2020. Dispiriting.
The Greater London Authority determined that the removal of the building 'will not cause any harm' and the new one will 'relate more sensitively to neighbouring heritage assets... enhancing the appearance of the Conservation Area'.
Here is the planning report in full. Sections 32 to 41 reward study: london.gov.uk/sites/default/…
Read 5 tweets
Samuel Hughes Profile picture
13 Apr
Work of Donald McMorran (1904-65) and George Whitby (1916-73), perhaps the last architects of the 'classical survival' in postwar Britain. Here Cripps Hall of the University of Nottingham (1959) and Wood Street Police Station (1966).
Their masterpiece was the Central Criminal Court extension (finished 1972), to my knowledge the last major government building in the classical tradition in Europe. Many intriguing sources, including Dance's Old Bailey, Georgian mill architecture, and a dash of Louis Kahn.
The building was bombed by the IRA the year after its completion, but was so solidly built that it survived 'almost without a scratch' (visible in the upper left here).
Read 4 tweets
Samuel Hughes Profile picture
12 Apr
After my rash claim that we have no premodernist high-rise in Europe, several excellent counterexamples have been raised. None of these buildings is perfect, but they are still important reference points today. Scott's Cambridge Library (1934) and Robertson's Shell Centre (1962). ImageImage
Holden's Senate House (1937) and Wallander's and Callmander's Kungstornen (1924/5) in Stockholm. ImageImage
McMorran and Whitby's Wood Street Police Station (1965) and the (alas notoriously ugly) Queen Anne's Mansions (1873). ImageImage
Read 6 tweets
Samuel Hughes Profile picture
10 Apr
Unlike Americans, Europeans have no precedents for high-rise design before modernism. It is thus with great interest that I observe several recent attempts at a vernacular skyscraper. Here before-and-after at Blackfriars Circus, by the ever-interesting Maccreanor Lavington.
Here Keybridge House, by Alliance and Morrison, and a proposed Maccreanor Lavington building on Old Kent Road.
I stress that I do not give any of these buildings my unqualified support, either architecturally or (especially) urbanistically. Nevertheless, they deserve attention: the right policy is to nourish encouraging tendencies, rather than making blanket condemnations.
Read 4 tweets

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