Continuity and Reinterpretation
Hollowed out by the pandemic, London is coming alive again. We are beginning to return to the City and re-discover the joys it can bring us. Re-exploring London has revealed its unique physical, historical and cultural characteristics. Using Nairn’s London as a departure point for exploration, the unit has engaged with three typologies intrinsic to the continuity of London.
One of the more recent Livery Companies, The Woshipful Company of Architects now seeks a dedicated hall of its own, to be located again at the edge of the city.
After the Great Fire of London the City was rebuilt in brick and stone, moving away from the timber framed construction of the past.The permanence of these materials in the city is embodied in the continuity of City architecture which began with the rebuilding. Churches of Sir Christopher Wren are defined by they dominant towers and subservient Naves. Stone speaks to the grandeur and permanence of the City, brick responds to the human scale and domesticity of the courtyard. These Churches symbolise the character and continuity of the City of London.
Referencing Aldo Rossi’s idea of the natural evolution of the city. The Livery Hall steps down to address the garden and tree line, brining a human scale that references the Wren churches of the City. The Public House references the scale of a traditional vernacular building, completing the line of the street.
Lintels, voussoirs, arches, vaults, piers; all components of traditional masonry construction.The project employs a multitude of traditional masonry construction techniques to estalbish an architecture which is rooted in a history of construction with a modern day sensibility towards detail and ornamentation.
An exploration into the continuity of the materiality and juxtaposition of spaces in the City of London, Architects’ Hall explores a restrained Classicism in loadbearing masonry construction.