Tate Modern

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Hampstead

The suburbs of London

Bloomsbury, Finsbury & The City 19/07/2011

Modern Period– post WWI.  This period was all about function over form, and in the rational construction.  Bloomsbury was the first place that we visited today.  This place was full of abstract, Bohemian references including the Brunswick Center.  This place was built between 1959-1972 and the architect was Patrick Hodgkinson.  The place was built to be a monumental, awe inspiring for all of London to see.  It was mega-structure that was uncompromising as yo

u can see below.
The next place we went, University of London, which was built between 1965-1975 by Lansden, is one of the biggest universities in London.  

The Senate House was established by 1931 and the architect was Charles Holden, the same that did 55 Broadway.  It was a large, brand new building for the University of London in a traditional style with a mix of some arts and crafts movement along with some modernism.

 

The renowned British Museum which is in a few scenes of The Mummy Returns, was established in 1907 by King Edward VIII and the architect on the job goes by the name of Robert Smarke.  
The part below became the British Library  in the great courtyard.  
Computer technology created the opportunity to input the roof, which paper and pencil would never be able to compute where the glass and bars would be placed.

In Finsbury, Charles Rohan House was established during the war.   It was the poorest and most politically driven location.  It provided housing, health care and welfare during the war.  It was inspired by arts and crafts and Queen Anne movements along with being Dutch modernist styles with dramatic rooflines.  
The Finsbury Health Centre is the most famous modernist building in the country of England.  It was built between 1935-1948 and was one of the first health care state sponsored.  The national health services expanded from here for people that provided free health care to the public. 
Saint John’s Square was our next location.  Here’s Saint John’s Monastery.
Bert Lubetkin was into amphipimorphic works in city scapes with random old churches with yards placed inside of tall buildings and random restaurants and bars.

The Haskins Company was established in the 1880s, and built as a warehouse with facades created entirely of glass.
The Golden Lane Estate was a post-war housing almost destroyed from The Blitz in 1941.  The city authorities had to rebuild after the war for residents to reside.  Golden Lane was built for cheap housing in the 1950s.  The strong, expressed structure with heavy color was done by Couvouisever.  

The Barbican Estate is a collection of apartments where the area is stretched with the same mega structures on a podium level.  There is a motor tunnel underneath Professor Garrard’s abode.  

Saint Giles Church

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Broadgate Estates and Broadgate Circle were done by the Aroup Associates from 1985-1987 to create a commercial finance ground for the boom that deregulation of stock market created.  Everything is a machine cut granite in corporate sponsored style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lloyd’s Building was built between 1976-1986 by Richard Rodgers and Partners as a HiTech Inside Outside Exoskeleton with aluminum panels.  The Gherkin was created in 2004 by Norman Foster and Partners with a clean and elegant streamlining.  

 

 

 

 

 

Victorian London: Kensington & Chelsea 14/07/2011

This is the area where I am able to rest from walking and studying all day long.  This is the place I have been forced to call ‘home’ for the past few weeks.  It is known to be the richest, most wealthiest part of London, with Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls Royce lining the streets besides Ferraris, Lamborginis, and Porsches.

Our class has now made it up to 19th century Victorian and Edwardian times.  This is when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, where steam trains were prevalent and motor vehicles began to be created.

The economic status saw the rich getting richer, while the moderately rich also had a relatively similar avenue towards opportunity of ultra riches.  The manufacturing and trading middle class would become a dominating force economically and suburbs grow exponentially in the old poor and stretch with large villas.

The first picture is of Prince Albert Memorial, which was built when Queen Victoria reigned between 1834 and 1901.  Prince Albert was the husband of Queen Victoria, and the memorial was put up between the 1860s and 1870s.  The two portrayed a passionate and romantic love for one another towards the public eye.  Prince Albert was a huge advocate of universal health care and welfare, along with being extremely opposed to slavery.

This monument was designed by George Scott, with the four corner figures representing Europa, Africa, Asia and America

The next place we attended is called Royal Albert Hall, seen here.  The hall seats up to 8000 people approximately, and is built in Italian Renaissance with brick and terracotta.  It is inspired by amphitheaters such as The Coliseum.  
Around the corner is the Albert Hall Mansions, which surrounds Albert Hall and were made ‘flats’ for the wealthy, or apartments.  We walked on the ‘pavement’ or sidewalk to get there.  Richard Norman Shaw designed the buildings here, who ended up being one of the most important architects of housing in the late 1870s and 1880s with his Queen Anne styling.  

The school I am currently attending, Imperial College London, and below is the library.  

The Natural History Museum is something I look at each day on my walk to school.  It was built between 1873-1880 by Alfred Waterhouse as the architect.  It has a multiple color or polychromy exterior, and is Romanesque in style along with having eclectic and Gothic inspirations.  
The Victoria and Albert Museum was established in 1900 by Aston Webb.

The Brompton Oratory was established in the 1880s by Gerbert Gribble in a Baroque revival is shown below.

The next pictures are of a well-known brand in America called Michelin, and this is the original Michelin building built in the 1900s of terracotta, and became the first Art Deco in London.  This was built right up the street from Marlborough Primary School, ubiquitous of the 19th century in London, and the location of London’s School Board start in 1870.  It was the first version of a public school in London in 1870, and prior to this school starting, only the wealthy and extremely smart children went to school while the rest just went to work at the factory where their fathers’ worked.

The Samuel Lewis Trust Co. shown below was the poor man’s version of the Albert’s housing.

St. Lukes Church is a pre-Victorian, late Georgian church established in 1820 by architect James Savage in a late proper revival of Gothic.

Chelsea Town Hall is of Baroque architecture where artists were required particular housing types in Chelsea-angled north lights so as to create a better studio presence.

Chelsea Studios

 West House of Phillip Webb architecture.

Georgian London: St. James & Soho 12/07/2011

This is 55 Broadway, London’s first attempt at the actual skyscraper, done in 1929.  This has been the London Underground Headquarters, where in the early 20th century it was in charge of every bit of architecture around the city.  Holden commissioned Epstein, Moore and Gill to design the exterior with controversial nudity in figures as a staple.
This is Queen Anne’s Gate, which provides a great explanation of how Georgian houses were made, and the progression from left to right of how they protruded out to a smooth and one basic brick.  This street is a great example of what was going on during Queen Anne’s reign.  Established from the 1780s to the 1840s, sash windows in Classical type were the norm.

St. James Park, established in 1531 by Henry VIII with a requirement for picturesque design, as seen in the picture.

St. James Palace

Spencer House, where Princess Diana’s family lived, and the Spencer family still resides, was established in 1752 and designed by John Vandy.

St. James Street showcases the highest concentration of Gentlemen’s Clubs, with Brecks to the left and Brooles to the right.  Gambling, drinking and higher middle class by invite would attend.  Brecks was finished in 1718 and Brooles in 1765.

St. James Square was done by architect James “Athenian” Stewart, author of “The Antiquities of Athens” and he made sure his buildings were exclusively Greek.

Dufours  Place

Meard Street

One of the only Georgian storefronts that remain.

Saint Paul’s Cathedral 09/07/2011

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the most magnificent inside of a building I have ever seen.  The way that Christopher Wren created such a beautiful layout is beyond me.  The exterior is amazing in and of itself, with a layout below of what exactly the gigantic place of worship entails.  Most churches were constructed in a cross form if looking down, as to pay homage to the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen savior.

Wren wanted to do something vastly different with domes, circular shapes, central focusing and central altar, but the overseeing committee refused.

This dragon is the protector, and also the dividing line between the legal district of London and the city.  Westminster is behind, the city of London ahead.

This is The Temple Church, where a piece of the Da Vinci Code was filmed.  The circle part was constructed in 1285, right around the time of the 1st Crusades.  It is built out of limestone, and is in late Romanesque/early Gothic architecture.  

The Renaissance Period of the early 16th and all of the 17th century, when Henry VIII was around, featured such architecture as Classicism, Greek and Roman rules for combining certain kinds of columns and number of columns as in simpaticos by Bertrubius (architect/writer).  He wrote the book on what you could and couldn’t do in designing, which was carried on by such names as Michelangelo and Raphael.  Doric columns is featured in this St. Paul’s Church below, which are the basic classical columns on most super structures.  Ionic is subtle and more abundant, while Corinthian is the most elaborate, tallest, curling ones.  Indigo Jones created much of the main Gothic/Classical buildings, including St. Paul’s Church.  He received personal training from Andre Pelatio in Venice, Italy.  He established this building in the 1630s.

The Covent Garden Market is the very first in London Square.  The late 17th and all of the 18th century was extremely important for England to establish themselves, and this market was first.  
Indigo Jones also built the river facade, including the Somerset House.  This is shown below.  Georgian Classical Portland stone building from the 18th century.  St. Mary La Strand was built by James Gibbs in 1715 in a Baraque style, seen below.This is the beginning of the Legal District in London.  The Royal Courts of Justice building is a Victorian Civic building, built by George Edmund Strect from 1871-1882, a sort of Renaissance in reverse.  

This is Middle Temple Hall, built in the 1560s inside the Temple, where templars have been working as lawyers since the 12th century.  Made up of mostly late 17th to 19th century buildings.
Saint Brides Church is another of Christopher Wren’s creations.  A penultimate wedding cake architecture, layer upon layer grow to be the ultimate Baroque architecture from the early 1670s.

This is St. Benet by Robert Hook.

Roman and Medieval London– 05/07/2011

Ragstone, flint, brick, slate, stucco and granite, terracotta, Portland stone, cast and wrought iron, these are all the types of material that various London buildings are built with.  Ragstone is a rough-textured chalky limestone that was used in medieval churches and civic buildings like Guildhall.  The exterior of St. Bartholomew the Great is made of whitish stone pebbles, hard shiny black surface when split open, which is flint.  They used this in some medieval and Gothic Revival churches.  Usually either dark red or yellow-brown (‘stock brick’), was used in the Roman period and from the 16th century as well in most Georgian and Victorian houses.  Portland Stone is a smooth, pure white limestone for high-status buildings from the late 17th century i.e. St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Slate is used in the roofs of most Georgian and Victorian houses from the late 17th century.  This is thin blue-gray slabs used as roofing tiles.  Nash’s Regent Street buildings from the late 18th century is made of Stucco which is painted plaster resembling stone, usually covering brick.  Granite, which is extremely hard stone with shiny grey or pink flecks that sometimes are polished, make up Tower Bridge and Broadgate.  This material was used in the 19th century for bridges and basements, along with cladding which was fashionable in the 1980s and 1990s.  The Natural History Museum is made of terracotta/faience, which consists of hard-textured cladding material resembling pottery, sometimes glazed and colored (faience).  This was in the late 19th, early 20th centuries.  The cast and wrought iron of Borough Market was a 19th century engineering structure which the cast was the metal columns and the wrought were the ribs.

The layers of horizontal bands of red brick at the top shows a split of the Roman phase (Classical Roman architecture), and the bricks were used to strengthen and hold the wall together firmly.

There was a total of 400 years break where no one lived here.  The building fell but the wall stayed.  The population grew from 20k to 100k by the end of the Medieval period.  Not much is left of medieval London because of The Great Fire of 1666 and the Blitz of the second World War.  The picture shows the biggest piece of the surviving chunk  of the city wall.

The Tower of London below, was originally a white tower built in 1080.  Around it was built over time to strengthen it.  It is a Classical Development.  The half circular tower is called a bastion, and it was used as a shooting platform.  19th century rebuilding in medieval style restored The Tower of London.  It is 1 of 3 buildings built by William the Conqueror to protect the city,

The Port of London was built between 1912 and 1927.  Office of Court of London authority controlled trade.  They used Roman style to show Britain’s authority and revival of the Roman power.  
The entrance of the St. Olave Church is five steps down from where the street is currently.  It is a medieval church that survived the great fire.

The church is a 14th century style, with the main window being early Gothic, it was built in the 15th century.  It was Classic with a small, cramped site and a tiny graveyard in the front.  This upper part of the tower was rebuilt in the 18th century.

The windows are a perpendicular Gothic style, of the late 15, early 16th century. Vertical mullions run up and divide the window.

 

This is the sign for Minster Court as you can see.  This is a post modern building built in 1987, and minster is medieval for church.  This place was involved in the big bang of the 1980s financial markets in trading.

The architect moved away from modernism of the 50s and 60s to evoke the past in a vertical, tall pointing shapes.

The London Hall Market is a Victorian Market and is the successor to the open air markets from the Middle Ages.This was built in 1881.
This is Saint Michael Cornhill.   Fire burnt the area, this neo Gothic style was the Renaissance’s version of a Gothic Tower.  In the 18th century, they used Portland stone, which was unknown about in the Middle Ages.  Guild Hall is in the administration part of the city, which has been since the Middle Ages.  In 1410 it was built, and it was and is still used as a meeting hall, and London’s common council meeting area.  It has Georgian Windows and Classical Pinnacles.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is on the same site, just below, where there are Roman remains below the courtyard.  The Roman Amphitheater from 100 AD, who’s main function was to hold roasts and gladiator battles.  This is what is left preserved.

This wall to the left pre dates the city of London wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This house on top is built in 1595 of timber, so as to flex better than stone to protrude the higher levels out and adding more room to the top floors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saint Bartholomew the Great Church was a medieval, and early Gothic church established in 1123.  Early Gothic architecture, as this is, has pointed arches but they are thick and heavy.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smithfield Market

 

 

 

 

 

Waterhouse architecture on the 19th century revival.  This building serves as an insurance company’s headquarters, and in the 19th century was a business and financial institution.  It is made of granite-terracotta in Victorian/Gothic style.

and…..

and he lived everywhere else too, because he was always not making very much money.

Southwark- the Borough 30/06/2011

Please click on any of the pictures shown to get a larger image.  All were taken by Tim Larsen.

This first picture is where our London’s History and Architecture class first met on Thursday, the 30th of June 2011.  This is the famous London Bridge Station, and the picture is showing the Network Rail System schedule.  It was established in 1836.

Opened to the public in December of 1836, London Bridge Station is the oldest station in London. It’s still one of London’s busiest stations and used by millions of passengers each year. First Capital Connect’s Thameslink services from London to Bedford and Brighton stop at London Bridge Station, and it’s also used by Southeastern Trains and Southern rail services.

Onto Saint Thomas Street, we turn to see Guy’s Hospital, a Georgian Paladian 18th century U-shaped building, which was built between 1721-1770.

This is the gate to enter the hospital.

Guy’s Hosptial

The hospital was founded in 1721 by Thomas Guy (1644/45–27 December 1724), a publisher of unlicensed Bibles who had made a fortune in the South Sea Bubble. It was originally established as a hospital to treat “incurables” discharged from St Thomas’ Hospital. Guy had been a Governor and benefactor of St Thomas’ and his fellow Governors supported his intention by granting the south-side of St Thomas’ Street for a peppercorn for 999 years. Guy is interred in the crypt of the Chapel of his foundation.

Guy’s has expanded over the centuries. The original buildings comprised a courtyard facing St Thomas Street, comprising the hall on the east side and the Chapel, Matron’s House and Surgeon’s House on the west-side. Two inner quadrangles were divided by a cloister which was later restyled and dedicated to the hospital’s members who fell in World War I. The east side comprised the care wards and the ‘counting house’ with the governors ‘Burfoot Court Room’. The north-side quadrangle is dominated by a statue of Lord Nuffield who was the chairman of governors for many years and also a major benefactor. These original parts of the hospital are now administrative and social accommodation.

In the parking lot of Guy’s Hosptial, looking up north we find The Shard, or pieces of The Glass o’ Shard.  It will be completed in 2012 for the Summer Olympics, which a majority of the construction here is supposed to be finished.  This building will scour London and become the tallest building in Europe, along with being the 45th largest building in the world.

 The George, or George Inn, is the only surviving galleried London coaching inn.

In 1676, the George was rebuilt after a serious fire that destroyed most of medieval Southwark. There had been many such inns in this part of London. Probably the most famous was The Tabard where, in 1388, Chaucer began The Canterbury Tales. The Tabard was also rebuilt after the same fire, but was demolished in the late 19th century.

Later, the Great Northern Railway used the George as a depot and pulled down two of its fronts to build warehousing. Now just the south face remains.

The George was one of the many famous coaching inns in the days of Charles Dickens. Dickens in fact visited the George and referred to it in Little Dorrit.William Shakespeare was another visitor; the Globe Theatre was a short distance away.

After seeing what 17th century chaps did for a good rise, we then head on down to Southwark Tavern and the Hop Exchange, shown here.

The purpose of the Hop Exchange was to provide a single market centre for dealers in hops.  The hops were grown locally in Sussex and created a classical drink trading market here.

Borough Market

This is Borough Market, one of the largest food markets in London, selling food from all over the world.

The Ginger Pig, shown here, was established in 1860 and is made of metal, shipped in pieces and put together on-site.

The Burrough Market is a railway viaduct, and is constructed by Victorian Engineering.

Here we have The Southwark Cathedral, which was a monastery but is now a church.  It was nearly demolished in 1830, and is made of limestone on the right side and flint on the left.

Southwark Cathedral or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge.

It is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. It has been a place of Christian worship for over 1,000 years, but a cathedral only since 1905. The present building is mainly Gothic, from 1220 to 1420.

The main railway line from London Bridge station to Cannon Street station passes close to the cathedral, blocking the view from the south side.Borough Market and the Hall of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass by the river are in the immediate vicinity.

The boat is a replica of The Golden Hinde of 1577 on Mary Overies Dock, which was captained by Sir Francis Drake in the 16th century.

Southwark was the largest town in the old diocese of Winchester and the bishop was a major landowner in the area. He was also a power in the land (Winchester being the old Saxon capital), and regularly needed to be in London on royal or administrative state business. For that purpose, Henry of Blois built the palace as his comfortable and high-status London residence.

The palace remained in use until the 17th century, when it was divided into tenements and warehouses, but was mostly destroyed by fire in 1814. Part of the great hall, and the west gable end with its rose window became more visible after a 19th century fire and 20th century redevelopment. It is believed that the great hall was built c.1136 and that the rose window was added 200 years later. The hall had a vaulted cellar below with direct access to theriver wharf for bringing in wares, and was richly decorated. It often entertained royal visitors, including James I of Scotland on his wedding to Joan Beaufort (niece of the then bishop, Cardinal Henry Beaufort) in 1424.

The rest of the palace was arranged around two courtyards. It other buildings within the site included a prison, brewery and a butchers. The bishops also had access to a tennis court, bowling alley and a garden.

The circular window in the top of the building is referred to as a rose.

This bridge is the Southwark Bridge, it was established in 1840, and the high arches created less obstruction for incoming boats, along with being constructed of the hardest rock, granite.

Summer School

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_College_London

June 26th through July 30th will be spent…

in my dorm…

on Fulham Road…

on King’s Road…

in South Kensington..

on Gloucester Road…

and studying in Hyde Park…