Modern British Architecture

Housing numerous museums and being the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851, South Kensington, in West London, is known for its value as a cultural centre. In 1983, a new building entered this historic centre of culture and added to it, albeit in a decidedly un-English way. The Ismaili Centre was designed to be a meeting place, academic institution, and place of worship for the 8,000 Ismaili Muslims in Great Britain (Long) the first of its kind in the West. Located at 1 Cromwell Gardens, the Ismaili Centre is on one of the busiest streets in London, and is directly in the middle of the historic and cultural centre of South Kensington.

Although I will primarily focus on South Kensington, and the Ismaili Centre’s place within it, it is important to understand South Kensington in its urban context, as part of a larger whole. South Kensington is part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the second-smallest local authority in London geographically (the Corporation of London is smallest), and the most densely populated in all of Britain (Lightfoot 54). The Royal Borough is a relatively new entity, formed as a merger of the Royal Borough of Kensington and the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea in 1965, and stretches from Notting Hill in the north all the way down to the river Thames. The former Royal Borough of Kensington (so titled by King Edward VII, whose mother, Queen Victoria, was born and raised in Kensington Palace) includes the area to the immediate north, west and south of Kensington Gardens, while the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea further south still. (Lightfoot 5) As a whole, the Royal Borough is the most affluent area in Britain, with an average household income of £42,272 annually in 2006; almost double the national average of £25,000. (Lightfoot 6, 54) It is home to some of the most well known landmarks in London, including Kensington Gardens, Notting Hill, Harrods, the Royal Albert Hall, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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The changes that have been made to the London Docklands in the past 25 years have been among the most striking and most dynamic developments in the world. The London Docklands Development Corporation (1981-1998) played a huge role in the area’s transformation, turning what used to be industrial wasteland into a vibrant area for commerce, residential life, and tourism. The area of the Docklands is over eight and a half square miles, all of which have been affected by the new developments in businesses and transportation. The Docklands represent one of the largest concentrations of twentieth and twenty-first century architecture in the world, and with new projects in development now, it will continue to grow, benefiting not only the area but London as a whole.

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The Gilsey House is not a particularly famous building in the Manhattan cityscape. Completed in 1869 as a hotel (the first hotel to offer telephone service to its guests), it is now a residential building somewhat overshadowed by the Empire State Building behind it, as the picture shows. However, I was drawn to it because it reflects a style I had not seen in New York particularly often (a style, I have learned, that is called Second Empire Baroque). The clock, positioned to face directly into the intersection of 29^th Street and Broadway almost immediately catches attention - particularly at night, when it is illuminated. The structure is a cast-iron facade, and indeed, the heavy ornamentation and many pillars give the building a sense of weight and strength not seen in other, more modern buildings.

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As a previous post has already described, the Catholic church Our Lady of Good Council, in Dennistoun, Glasgow, is a place for quiet, contemplative worship focused more on God and less on the building itself. The space is, for the most part, unadorned, and this is one of the few flourishes of detailed design by the architectural firm Gillespie, Kidd, and Coia. It is one of a pair of recessed spaces, each above and on either side of the central altar area. These grooves provide an interesting framing device for the altar— however subtle— and suggest a much more common design element— the column. Indeed, the groove on the right (pictured here) is terminated along an angle that, if it does not match precisely, at least suggests the same slant as the roof above it, creating the parallel line that would be present along the tops of columns as they joined the ceiling of the room. As the roof slants downward from left to right, and the groove on the right is shorter than that of the left, it even further enhances the concept of pillars supporting the roof. The left groove (not pictured) is longer than its mate, but its peak slants the other way, creating a somewhat startling asymmetry reminiscent of the asymmetry of the two sides of the roof,

The grooves are of a similar style as the three crosses in the upper-left corner of the larger northern wall, and fit well with the general motif of understated adornment (indeed, even the basin for the holy water is directly part of the low stone wall by the stairs, and not a separate piece of its own). This understated adornment provides for only the suggestion of the grandeur of a Catholic church— reminding the parishioners of their faith without distracting their worship. However, the grooves perform another function. Being located on either side of the altar, and only on the northern wall (the largest wall, the wall that the congregation faces during Mass), the use of grooves instead of columns— of empty space instead of structural elements— almost suggests that there is something else holding up the roof of the church— faith.