Clerkenwell Design Week 2025 – let there be lights and

CDW – what's not to like?!  I keep telling people that this design festival is not just for people in the industry as there is so much to learn about innovations in flooring, upholstery, lighting, soundproofing, sanitary ware and more. If you are ever thinking of doing some home improvements this 3-day event is pack full of ideas.

Last Wednesday 21st I reached Clerkenwell shortly after midday and, after collecting my badge and lanyard from the booth outside Farringdon stsion, I headed at first to The Charterhouse, keen to see how this collection of historic buildings was being used.

The inner quadrangle contains some lovely ventilation made with layered roof tiles. 

Most of the exhibitors here were offering sanitaryware and other bathroom fittings and I was amused at the juxtaposition between that and the centures-old painting that looked down on them, including Sir Richard Sutton and his dog:

I went out into the gardens outside to admire Alex Chinnecks' A Week At The Knees – undulating brick façade, possibly the most recognisable and most photographed artwork here this year. Incidentally, Charterhouse is an English corruption/mis-pronunciation of Chartreuse which is where the Carthusian monks came from. 

At the junction of Goswell Road I noticed that The Hat & Feathers pub has been renovated. It has reopened for business this week. This reminds me that approx two years ago the gilded signage around the building had been removed revealing the name of a completely different type of business – I will endeavour to dig out the many pics I took of that. At the St john Street junction of Clerkenwell Rd there is a marvellous scale model (I think it was in the windows of Solus):

This echoes Jool's Holland's own model railway complex as used in the opening credits of Later on BBCTV and the marvellous scale models at Kings Cross Model Railway Club which I visited earlier this year but don't appear to have shared on Jane's London yet – that's another thing that's slipped through the net! As they say, 'life gets in the way' – when I find a parallel universe I will attend to my bulging To Do folder.

Lunchtime – to the showroom of Actiu International in Seward Street to see my friend Thomas who works there. I took the opportunity to partake of the food and drink on offer whilst I read their literature, and discovered that Actiu was one of the first companies to design specific office furniture, something that I think they should boast about rather than bury within their literature. I watched as people were clearly enjoying their outdoors-inside pod clad in eco plants.

The next two pics are simply a bit of compare and contrast – 1950's architecture on Old Street and tutti-frutti style surfaces in Cesar Ceramics on Gt Sutton Street...

... where branded bright pink tables lined the Street. The ventilation tile within the elegant exterior is one of many on what was built as Pollards shopfitters HQ on St John Street. 

Above, bottom left is within Wagstaff in Brewery Yard where I learned about sustainable fabrics, recycled plastics, natural textiles, Italian design and more. The chandeliers shown here were within the old prison cells which, as per previous CDWs, is used to showcase light fittings. Here I enjoyed some interactive pieces courtesy of PixelArtworks – these next two pics are of me, you can make out my eyes and then see my arms. Great fun!

It was here I got talking to another attendee and we then visited a few other places together, including views from the roof of The Sessions House and a couple of church crypts, where the range of products and innovations, such as recycled floor coverings and sustainable yarns was almost too much to absorb.

We weren't the only people to find this pale pink vase rather amusing. I have paired it with a paint splattered wall that I saw in St John Street. Keeping to the phallic theme, near Cowcross Street there are what I think are repurposed cannons as bollards. Three of them are marked 'St Sepulchre Midd' which is the church on Holborn Viaduct (there are often free concerts), the parish then being in what was then Middlesex (c.1820s). 

I ended my day at EH Smith where I went to collect a brick that I will decorate and return by the end of June. You can do this too – just pop in ad pick up a brick yourself. The bricks come supplied in a neat fitted cardboard carrier. Here's my effort from 2023 which got through to the final but I didn't win the big prize to Venice – again, I really thought I'd written about this on here, but nope. You can see me on the extreme left of this pic and the awards evening. 

I stayed there until almost 10pm quaffing wine and chatting. Thanks EH Smith – an excellent end to an inspiring day!

Day 2 –  I hadn't planned to see more but, with a few free hours after a meeting in Smithfield, it seemed daft not to... 

Most of my time was spent around the junction of St John Street and Clerkenwell Rd. I popped into Ascot to learn about way marking and signage and then, as I was walking along Albermarle Way, I spotted a huge multi-tiled dome inside Jung's window so I popped in to investigate:

 

The dome is made up from 100s of light and control switches - there was a competition to guess how many tiles, but I didn't bother. A wonderful surprise is walking round to the other side of the sphere to see that is has a fabulous concave mirrored interior. I also liked all the coloured switches (see below) and the pun-tastic stickers. Oh, and the music playing in this space was all based on the the phrases and slogans on those stickers. An absolute delight and possibly my favourite showroom at the CDW2025. Lots of good chats.

Sophie suggested I visit Toto round the corner where she'd said a product was a bit over the top. Ah yes - the famous Japanese automated toilets. I watched incredulously as they demonstrated the nozzle jets, lights and flushing system activated by a hand-held remote control. Weird! Give me a dock leaf any day!  

I returned to Sophie for a debrief and more chats and a beer and a bit of bad singing and then continued along the street. But I didn't get far because nest door a man offered me a pulled pork bun outside Magscapes and this in turn led to a conversation with the owner/inventor Jerry about Clerkenwell Showrooms and so much more and the next thing I knew he was leading me up to the flat roof at the rear of the building to give me a better view of the three Ancient Lights signs that overlook the church gardens below. I'll be staying in touch with Jerry – he's given me a few ideas – watch this space.

I'll stop now!

Here's my experience of CDW2023 – I didn't write it up last year – good grief, I am sounding like a cracked record!

Criminal loss of curved Art Deco windows at Balenciaga, New Bond Street

I am often to be heard talking about how surprising it is that many of the marvellously constructed and well-embellished buildings along Old/New Bond Street are not listed at least Grade II. This, I assumed/hoped was because the kind of companies who trade here are aware and proud of the beautiful buildings in which their products were being sold and they simply look after the heritage they inherit. Indeed, one only has to look at the excellent revamp by Victoria's Secret at the northern end of New Bond Street, where many of the modern shopfittings installed a decade ago were cleverly created with modern products to appear as if they have been there since the 1930s. The outside of that building is stunning, never mind the gorgeous glass staircase inside.  

But this post is about what I believe is criminal damage/wanton destruction at 24-25 New Bond St, on the corner of Conduit Street, where beautiful, possibly unique, curved windows at ground level that meandered in and out of the supporting columns as a wavy curtain of glass, shown above (Google Streetview screengrab) are no longer there.  

Form the late 1930s, this building used to be home to C. J. Lytle Ltd, as shown by this marvellously evocative pic from 1948. More recently, until 2020, it was a branch of Russell & Bromley who made excellent use of the undulating glass as shown in the Google streetview pic above. When R&B moved out, the windows were individually covered, as shown in my pic below from Feb2021. Phew, I thought, the are being protected, they'll be fine.

When Balenciaga took over the building they installed big bright green hoardings around the curtilage (I love that word!) as shown here in June2021. I continued to naively assume that this was to protect the lovely windows, that they were simply performing a bit of TLC behind there. I mean, who would remove what surely must be some of the best curved glass in London? 

But last Easter weekend, whilst walking past, leading a guided tour, I stopped in my tracks, exclaimed, "No!" and then had to explain to the group why I was so shocked, even though this was not the subject of the walk on that day.

The gorgeous curves and undulations have been removed and replaced. The windows are now flat plate glass and the columns have been boxed in. Balenciaga are so proud of their new boxy space that on their website here they call this 'a treat' – I call it a 'blandification' and I think Villanelle, that character in BBC's Killing Eve who has been pictured sporting Balenciaga's expensive boots, would call this renovation "BORE-RING!"

It's amazing that Balenciaga didn't go the whole hog and install chickenshop-style UPVC doors and windows as this is barely a step up from that. I am so upset. But you understood that paragraphs ago(!).

It occurred to be that the gorgeous glass curves were very similar to other excellent shop fronts created and installed by Pollards such as here and I was hoping that when those green hoardings came down I might be able to find one of Pollards' patent marks embedded in the metal edges. But now that's not possible. And, to add insult to injury, I was convinced that I had taken some good close-up photos of those curved windows a while back when R&B was still trading here, and was hoping that I could include those images as slides for one of my online talks about Art Deco buildings, but now, frustratingly, I now cannot find them. Let's hope they show up and it's just because I simply didn't get around to naming the files. 

Update March2026– I still haven't found those pics. But here's a curve-ball... I have found evidence of the corner of Conduit Street in 1948 here on RIBA pix, which clearly shows that the curved windows were not a pre-war concoction. It shows that Russell & Bromley were already there at that time and they must have installed the undulating glass at a later date, I know not when. 

It's a huge loss when cleverly-designed bespoke elements are renovated or removed. A similar example can be found at No.1 New Bond Street at the Ralph Lauren flagship store, a building that resembles a Byzantine-style palace which, in 1939, was home to The National Provincial Bank, F.W.Woolworths, CondeNast publishing, and offices of the aforementioned C.J.Lytle advertising before they moved to the Balenciaga site later that year. Today the Ralph Lauren store sports plate glass at street level but here's a link to how it used to look in 1955. I do not know when the ground floor windows were altered, although many buildings of this type suffered blandifications in the 1960s and 1970s in an attempt to remove what was then seen as fussy embellishments. A similar thing occurred at the Louis Vuitton store, on the corner of Clifford Street but, on the plus side, LV must be commended for a revamp a few years ago when they altered the lower external façade to echo the designs within the upper floors, which is marvellous.

Let's hope that the curved glass windows have been repurposed elsewhere. If I find out more, I will add to this post.

The Balenciaga and the Ralph Lauren buildings feature on my Burlington Deco guided walk which is all about the shops, clubs and designer goods of the Jazz Age and 1930s. 

Goodbye Habitat Tottenham Court Road – but let's save Pollard's curved windows

Heading down Tottenham Court Road on a bus in early March this year, I noticed that Habitat had moved out. Oh dear. I got off the bus to take a few snaps. The exterior signage had been removed and the interior was being stripped. The lovely curved display windows that run around the shop on both sides were covered in dust. 

The windows around this part of the building are double co-joined curves – an expensive innovation, but this design allows the products to be seen clearly rather than be hindered by reflections from the street. The glass would have been installed in the late 1930s by Pollards, the go-to shop-fitting company of that era who had 'imported' this curved glass idea from the US. 

I went back in April and took some more photos. With all the furniture removed this gave clear views across the store space of the windows. Really good infitity shots are to be had from the exterior where mirrored end panels along the top sections repeat the curves.

I recall that the curved windows used to continue all the way along the full frontage – these were replaced with boring sheet glass c2000. I didn't take pics or note the specific date but I did find a photo ref of that somewhere – when I re-find it I will add it to this post.

There are only a handful of places in London where Pollards' unusual horizontal curved glass can be found these days and each install is unique... 

Fox umbrellas, at London Wall, Moorgate, was established in nearby Fore Street in 1868. As I understand, this is the first site where Pollards' curved glass was installed. It's really hard to photograph, especially when the place, which is today a cafe bar, is closed during lockdown or open with people sat at tables outside on the pavement. 

The double curves at the Fox shop here are shallower than at the other sites. I haven't a clue what those blobby bits of art in the window were supposed to be! At the extreme right end of the hand rail there is an imprint showing Pollards' non reflecting window patent numbers.  

The shop also retains many of the early C20th interior wood fittings. Pre-this Jazz Age refit, the display windows would have looked something like James Smith & Sons, New Oxford Street.

And then, of course, we have what is possibly the best-known example of these windows at Joseph Emberton's marvellous building for Alexander Simpson, a stone's throw from Piccadilly Circus. It opened in 1936 selling Simpson's range of men's clothing and is today home to Waterstone's bookshop. Here we a have two sets of single deep curves, again with the mirrored ends. During the Christmas 2018 period part of the windows were damaged and suffered huge cracks, as shown below protected by thick adhesive plasitc sheets. This being a Grade I listed building, the glass has since been replaced. Phew.

As per the Fox shop, on the hand rails on the Piccadilly-facing windows, Pollards name and 'patent invisible glass' can be found at both the extreme left and right,  rather than 'non reflecting' as per the Fox shop' along with two patent numbers can be found. 

More about Pollards in italics at the bottom.

Joseph Emberton's beautifully-designed building for Simpson has, in effect, two front doors – the southern entrance in Jermyn Street is just as impressive, implementing the same curved glass and showing that both entrances were of importance as regards customers, but I cannot find a patent mark on this side of the building:

The fourth/last London example, unless someone can tell me where to find others, is on the old gas showroom on Crouch End Broadway, today home to Barclays Bank, where double shallow curves meet and point towards us along both sides of the building. No Pollards markers to be found but there's some really nice Art Deco geometric metalwork at low level.

At high level, this building also features eight beautifully-carved panels carved by Arthur Ayres depicting the many different things that gas power could do for us.

Edward Pollard, shopfitter, company founded 1895. Listed at 134E+F Kingsland Rd, E2, as E.Pollard. 1906 moved to 29 Clerkenwell Rd. In 1913 E. Pollard & Co. designed and fitted Carreras Piccadilly shop. c1919 built a factory in Highbury. 1920s showrooms at 299 Oxford St (branches in Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, Dublin). By 1923 E. Pollard & Co.Ltd also have second Clerkenwell premises at 158-187 St John St (Hammond+Champness lifts building, rebuilt 1925-27). 1967 Pollard Group relocated to Basingstoke.

UPDATE: see the comments for reference of similar curved glass at HMV, 363 Oxford Street, which I have written about separately here. 

UPDATE 2: A photo of the Piccadilly store shortly after it opened can be found in Art Deco Style by Hillier and Escritt. Here is crop of the street level area of that image:

It seems to show curved pairs coming forwards as at the other locations, and I am now thinking that the deep curve we see there today, that swoops away from us, was installed at a later date. Intriguing.