architecture

stockwell bus garage interior

Stockwell’s concrete cathedral for buses

08/02/2022 donbrown 0

Fall asleep on a Go-Ahead bus and you might just be lucky enough to wake up in the depot – the soaring, concrete cathedral that […]

The Chapel of St John the Evangelist

28/12/2021 donbrown 0

One of the loveliest and most peaceful spaces in London is literally in the centre of one of the busiest. The Tower of London gets […]

The Ascent of W1: the Marble Arch Mound

21/08/2021 donbrown 0

I actually thought it might be a good idea. It was certainly an idea worth exploring, and perhaps wacky/left field enough to work; plant a […]

A steam ship in the City of London

29/07/2021 donbrown 0

There are quite a number of ‘Holland Houses’ in the capital – the remains of a Jacobean country home in Holland Park, Kensington; a school […]

London’s newest castle: The US Embassy, Nine Elms

31/03/2020 donbrown 0

Don’t call it a moat. Let’s be clear about that from the start; it’s not a moat – it’s a lake. Well, that’s according to […]

farm st church

Farm Street Church, Mayfair – a gothic wonder

02/03/2020 donbrown 0

The Victorians loved the medieval. The ‘gothic revival’ actually started earlier – in the late 1700s/early 1800s as a reaction to classicism – but it […]

“One of the sights of London”

26/11/2019 donbrown 0

“Miss the Tower of London, if you have to, but don’t miss this” wrote Ian Nairn in his 1966 guide, Nairn’s London. A Nash terrace? […]

Up on the Roof – the Walkie Talkie’s Sky Garden

01/12/2018 donbrown 0

I’ve tried hard to like the Walkie Talkie, Rafael Vinoly’s skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street, but so far I’ve been unsuccessful. The thing dominates the […]

london society development plan

The Development Plan for Greater London

24/11/2016 donbrown 0

Before Abercrombie and Forshaw, with their 1943 and 1944 plans for modernising London , with new ring roads, ‘zoned’ areas and satellite new towns, there […]

Rogers' Lloyd's Building reflected in Foster's Willis Building

The Lloyd’s Building

25/10/2016 donbrown 1

In 1978, the year after architect Richard Rogers’ Pompidou Centre opened in Paris, construction started on his first major London project, The Lloyd’s Building in Lime […]