Criminal damage at Gilray House, 146-150 City Road

Earlier this year I wrote about the vile plans for Willen House in Bath Street, Moorfields, and how a horrible coating of dull grey paint will soon be covering a truly unique 20th Century building. 

Well, just around the corner, in an area that forms part of a conservation area, there is another building that earlier this year succumbed to the slate grey treatment. I had noticed that scaffolding had been erected around it last year and I simply thought it was being cleaned. It used to look like this (pics from Google streetview): 

But no, today it looks like this:

I have often wondered if the name of the building is in some way related to the clever Georgian artist and satirsist James Gilray. I hope not, because this is no laughing matter. The delicate details are now hard to see. It has been sloshed over with what looks like a layer of thick soot, slathered across the whole building all the way up to the top where only the new addition on the roof, which looks like a spaceship, is a unpainted. 

I am saddeneed at the grey-washing of the 'deco-esque' upperfloors which continues across the elegant metal windows, previously highlighted in Barclays Bank blue which sang out against the pure white walls and contrasted with the creamy-coloured faeince tiles of the streetlevel banking hall. The whole clearly showed how the architecture in the 1920s morphed from pretty decorative styles into the simplicity of the Bauhaus. The building not only housed Barclays Bank for almost a century, but it was also originally a Post Office with offices above for Royal Mail employees.  

About 8 years ago, the building was renovated and cleaned and I understood at that time that an application had previously been made to add anther storey or two to the top and this had been rejected due to this being in the Moorfields conservation area, although they did allow another floor to be added, but it was not visible from street level – notice how the buildings on this West side of City Road are all relatively low level in comparison to the high rise modern monoliths on the other side that, incidentally, have generated a nasty wind tunnel, especially problematical as you approach Old Street from East Road. I wonder if the energy created by these manmade howling gales here, and elsewhere where other ridiculously tall buildings have been constructed, could somehow be harnessed to exacerbate the forthcoming fuel bills. And what happened to that idea about gym running machines as generators? Anyway, I digress...

Conservation areas are clearly pointless. They do little protect the buildings from greedy developers keen to cut corners and make a quick buck. But I notice here at Gilray House that the horrid light-absorbing shades of dullsville on this East-facing site has done little to tempt in new leasehoolders – most, if not all of the building, is standing empty. A big shame all round.

This building and Willen House feature on my Art Deco Shoreditch walking tour.  

 

A new architectural style in Spitalfields, E1 - Revivialist Pasticheism

Walking from Aldgate to Old Street last weekend via Spitalfields market, I cut across Wentworth Street and into Toynbee Street. Ahead of me, on the right, I saw an Art Deco style building. I stopped in my tracks – this definitely wasn't there a few years ago and I recalled a ramshackle mess of low-level buildings along that north side, covered in posters and graffiti, as shown below, top left, and here on retrospective streetview. This new building is quite clearly a modern take on the late 1930's style of architecture complete with geometric motifs. Indeed, on the front of it proudy shows 2021. How bizarre.

I contunued along the street to find more pastiche structures in the form of late Georgian workshops, and Victorian warehouses, all with strangely colourful windows frames, and another 1930s-style building in grey tones at the far end. 

I went to investigate the other side of the block in Commercial Street and found that a Jazz Age façade now replaces some derelict low level buildings at the rear/front of the black-tiled building in Toynbee Street. 

What is going on here? If these were reconstructions of the buildings previously demolished here I'd kind of understand the point of it. But that's clearly not the case. This appears to be some kind of showcase of the kinds of buildings you might have found in the area sometime in the past. A bit touristy and cheesy in my view. Sort of like the set of a cartoon movie.

Is it that today's architects run out of new ideas?

What do you think? Do you have any further info?

Next week I will post about two lost Art Deco gems in this area.

Get up close to the Painted Hall ceiling at Greenwich ORNC – plus a tip for good cheap food

I can't recommend this enough.
The marvellous Painted Hall ceiling with the Old Royal Naval College buildings is being cleaned and conserved. Miles and miles of scaffolding have been erected within and guided tours are available so we can climb to the top and see the artwork up close.
The guided tour I went on last week was excellent – our guide explained so much about the history of the building and the meanings behind the imagery.
Absolutely fascinating and gorgeous too. It's a must-see.

See top right for some of the damage – it's hoped that the conservation work will last another 100 years before the next clean up

The quality of the wood carving is also amazing – see the hand bottom left and the head of a pollaxe at the centre 

My friend in the pics has written a much better account of this place. Click here.
Check out the availability for future tours here plus how to sponsor a section of the work.

And here's a good tip for where to eat in Greenwich – very close to the Painted Hall, at the far end of the Chapel building, there is a very good, and I mean very good, cafe/student refectory which is open to all and serves excellent choice of hot and cold food, yummy cakes and drinks all at normal prices. Being part of the university they aren't allowed to advertise so I told the friendly staff there that I'd give them a mention.
The unobtrusive entrance to the cafe is almost hidden at the at the eastern end of the ORNC complex opposite Park Row gate facing a building that has a strange frieze at the top depicting amongst many things a lion with a serpent's tail – see below (needs more research).
Map of the area

Jane's Advent Calendar – 9th December

Green door, what's that secret you're keeping?
9 Roupell Street, London SE1

A stone's throw from Waterloo Station are some lovely old streets.

The area is constantly under threat from developers and the houses in this evocative location fetch exhorbitant unrealistic prices.

See this video by David Gilna of people walking to work there.

Oh, and cos you are probably sing that song... click here for Mr Stevens.

New Covent Garden Flower Market and the Promenade of Curiosities

Last Wednesday I went on a tour of the Nine Elms area. I have written about the some of the bad bits so here's the nice stuff.

I had never been inside New Covent Garden Flower Market before and really enjoyed listening to Helen Evans, director of business development and support as she told us all about imported plants, sundries, plant buying, problems with the existing building and the plans to relocate to the other side of the road near the fruit market. 

Flower prices are, of course cheaper and fresher at NCGFM  than from your local supermarket where they sit just inside the entrance doors batting to stay alive as the temperature changes by the minute. Anyone can shop at the market – you buy by wraps (bunches) and pay by the stem +VAT. It's option anxiety. I was really impressed by how many other things are available, not just plants – there are pots, planters, lights, ribbons, driftwood, fake flowers, architectural elements galore – anything you might need to make a display.

From there we wandered eastwards and heard about the The Promenade of Curiosities which will create a pedestrian walk linking Nine Elms through The Pleasure Gardens and all the way east to Lower Marsh. We stopped off half way for tea and scrummy cakes at the beautifully renovated Tea House Theatre, formerly the rather down market Queen Anne pub. Then along Vauxhall Walk and across Black Prince Road to look at the construction of Damien Hirst's new art gallery in Newport Street (bottom right) which I will probably write something scathing about when it opens (!).

Blackberry picking on the Parkland Walk

It's blackberry season and all along the Parkland Walk people are out collecting bowls of the lovely sweet fruit from the many bushes that line the old railway track. I didn't have a bowl with me on the day I was there so I just grazed as I walked along.
It's really lush along there at the moment as the trees and bushes are all in full leaf. The paths and woodland areas are well maintained by a sterling group of volunteers (see above link) and are accessed at many points from the adjoining roads by stairs made form old railway sleepers. There are also information points along the way explaining the various flora and fauna to be found there.
Parkland Walk is frequented by joggers, dog walkers and people just out for a stroll enjoying the greenery. And, just like London's canal paths (well, apart from the Camden stretch of the Regent's Canal), this walk makes you feel as you have left the concrete city when really it is only just a few metres above or below you.
The pictures below are all from the stretch between Finsbury Park and Crouch Hill. More posts and pictures about this thin stretch of nature to follow.