Open Hoooooooouse 2015 #4

After McCann I went off to Belgrave Square, to visit the Romanian Cultural Institute and the Italian Cultural Institute. I also added the Argentinian Ambassador’s Residence, because it was a) there and b) open.

These buildings were fairly similar, all being from around the same time and in the same place. They are mostly built in the same style (I have just had to use timestamps to work out which photos were from which building), all being on Belgrave Square and at around the same time (mid 19th century). There was an interesting exhibition of Romanian art on but it didn't photograph very well, sadly.

The Italian Cultural Institute was much the same:

The Argentine ambassador's residence weren't allowing photos so none from there, but one thing I really enjoyed was an exhibition of cartoons by the Argentinian cartoonist REP – I was very sad to find out this was literally only on for Open House, but also pleased I’d chosen to go in there. I currently have this postcard from the exhibition up at work:

(English: Thanks, you can move now)

There's an interview with REP here: http://www.argentinaindependent.com/the-arts/art/rep-a-very-porteno-cartoonist/

After all of this, I was completely worn out and had completed my list for the day, so I made my way home and collapsed.

Open Hooooooooouse 2015 #3

Side note: this series of posts is never going to end. ONWARDS!

After the walk, I headed back towards Holborn, hoping to get to the German Historical Institute, though I missed this as they closed at 2, so instead I went to my favourite Korean restaurant (Bi Won on Coptic Street) to get lunch (squid in spicy sweet sauce, THE BEST) and have a brief break.

My next stop was McCann London, which is a former Daimler garage that has been turned into an advertising agency’s office. I originally chose this place because I got it mixed up with another white art deco type building, however that one is in Mount Pleasant and I don’t even know what it’s used for or exactly where it is, so once I’d worked that out I decided to come along to this one anyway, and I’m really glad I did. The building itself was really interesting, and being an ad agency there was a lot of creative decor.

It was built in 1931 and was actually in use as a parking garage until 1988. The designer, Wallis Gilbert, also designed Victoria Coach Station. As it is a listed building, McCann have had to be a bit creative, so a lot of the original features are covered to make it suitable for use as an office (for example the ramps have been turned into quite sloping stairs). They've also got a roof garden and a swish coffee bar for staff.

External views:

Internal shots of the foyer and coffee bar:

Views from the roof:

Open Hooooooooouse 2015 #2

I got on the DLR at Tower Hill and headed off to Chrisp Street Market to visit the clock tower, because I like to climb up things to get a good view over the city. Give me a high platform over London and I am happy (speaking of which, I need to book a Skygarden slot at some point).

While I was there, some of the volunteers mentioned there was a walk of the area starting at 12, and having only a vague clue where I even was at this point, I decided to stick around for that.

It was a really interesting walk, although it did involve going up the clock tower a second time, which was quite hard on my legs. A lot of the people on the walk were locals who knew about the area too, so that was good.

The Chrisp Street area was developed as part of the Festival of Britain in 1951, to show how working-class areas could be improved (or rather rebuilt) post-war with care and attention. The area didn't get as many visitors as hoped but various elements of the estate - low-rise housing, open spaces - definitely set the area apart from many places in London, even today.

The tower itself was described by its designer (Sir Frederick Gibberd) as a 'practical folly', and is a freestanding brick structure (with concrete steps) on the edge of the market place.

Views from the tower:

I didn't take many pictures on the walk round the area, but as you can see above there is some really interesting 20th century architecture, including the currently-closed Balfron tower (due to become privately-owned flats, sadly: http://www.eastendreview.co.uk/2015/03/24/balfron-tower-poplar-harca/).

As I said above, I barely knew where I was but it's definitely an area I'm interested in visiting again, preferably with a bit more forward knowledge this time!

Open Hooooooooouse 2015 #1

To start: Open House is a very big deal to me. It’s basically my favourite weekend of the year. I was trying to explain it to my new boss – who had known me for all of six weeks by this point – and she said ‘you’re so excited, it’s like Christmas’ and she’s right. It’s like the whole city is there as a present. 

You know, once upon a time, I considered – seriously considered – moving out of London. HA HA HA HA. 

I’ve done Open House six or seven times now (with a few years’ break when I was always in Cornwall on holiday at the time) and I have got much better at planning it over time, which I will now demonstrate. Previously my record of sites was 9 over two days – not too shabby, and still enough to get me strange looks – but this year I managed THIRTEEN sites over the weekend. 

It was amazing. I had such a great time. The planning process, if anyone’s interested, runs like this: 

1) Get book and go through, marking everything that looks interesting. 
2) Go through again a few days later and narrow it down, discounting anything that requires pre-booking (not a bad thing but I like having flexibility), and/or is open to the public at other times. 3) Plot remaining sites on a Google map to work out where they all are in relation to each other. 4) Add info to map points about opening times. 
5) Work out travel times/distances between sites combined with opening times to make final decision. 

I started off on Saturday morning getting stuck at Lewisham station after the doors stopped working on my train. I noticed a new apartment building that had appeared from nowhere behind Matalan, but this is Lewisham, where new apartment buildings appear at a rate of one a month. Eventually a new train turned up and I headed off to Custom House, currently used by HMRC and previously where customs duties were collected when ships came in to London. 

It’s an imposing building, built in the early 19th century (with some rebuilding since), and inside it looks like most older buildings still in use in London – mostly normal but then with some really interesting period features, in this case the Long Room (190 feet long, in fact) - now in use as a very very big open plan office - and some big staircases. There were also some interesting displays on things confiscated by customs (including rare animals) and the different aspects of HMRC’s work now. Sadly they’re only open to the public for Open House.

After Custom House I walked up to Tower Bridge to visit Tower Bridge House, a building constructed mostly of glass which looks a bit like the new front of Blackfriars station (also mostly glass). Slightly confusing at times tbh. Anyway, I’d decided to visit this site because the book talked about a ‘giant window’ that overlooked the Tower of London (not hard to do by Tower Bridge, admittedly) and it was energy efficient and all that. It was worth it, as the view was great and the construction of the building was interesting as well - really nice use of light and space: