The brutalist 1960s Economist tower is losing its eponymous tenant, The Economist, and being given an internal make-over. Externally it will look the same as it’s grade II* listed. It was a bold choice fifty years ago and attracted the opprobrium of many denizens of St James’s.
In fact it is brutalist-lite. The National Theatre and even Eton’s theatre have more concrete and with a much coarser texture. The concrete cladding for the Econmist tower is “roach” a layer of rock that lies above Portland stone and it doesn’t dominate.
The next towers we visit are on the south side of Hyde Park, unimaginatively called One Hyde Park. It was completed in 2009 and the flats are reputed to be the most expensive in London, although many of them seem to be unoccupied. Its modernist architecture doesn’t frighten the horses that pass it while exercising in the park, nor is it likely to be listed. Financially it is secure as it belongs to Qatar. There’s not far to go to see our third tower, just a couple of hundred yards to Hyde Park Barracks.
This tower takes us back to the late 1960s and has concrete cladding in the brutalist style. It was controversial and the architect, Basil Spence, made a blunder. He put stabling for the horses of the Household Cavalry on multiple stories with big lifts to move them up and down – an equine multi-storey car park. He did not consider the effect of horse piss on reinforced concrete, which quickly started to rot.
Isn’t life grand? You can live at considerable expense in One Hyde Park or, if you want a bird’s-eye view of Hyde Park but are short of money, enlist in the army and get paid to live in Knightsbridge Barracks.
Since you are on a Modernist jag can I recommend the Sussex Modernism at Two Tudor Place? A pretty good show in an extraordinary venue.
Also, come to that, the very moving War In the Sunshine, The British in Italy, 1917-1918, at the Italian Futurist gallery, the Estorick Collection, Canonbury Square. Replete with a v engaging cafe.
Hurry, hurry, I say – both shows only run a month or so.
BTW: Britain’s most articulate Modernist architect, Colin St John Wilson, owned the grand Georgian house which now houses the Estorick. I remember loving the similar personal housing choice made by Richard Rogers. Surely, richly funny even to a fan of Polite Modernism and even full-on Brutalism, such as me.
BTW #2: CSJW collected much Modernist painting by Britons, and his haul is now in Chichester’s Pallant Gallery, for which he designed an extension. I think that completes the synchronicity nicely.