Yesterday's Open House tally was eight.
Here's a quick summary.
• The iconic building on the other side of London where it looked like they were offering walk-up tours including a rooftop visit, so I went out of my way to attend only to find that the tour in fact required booking and was full, plus it turned out the tour wasn't actually part of Open House and cost £15, but never mind said the volunteer because I was free to walk round the public parts of the building, except I already had because it's a public building with free access, but never mind said the volunteer because she thought there were other Open House venues in the local area but she didn't know what they were, and this woolly inadequacy is why Open House is sometimes such an annoyingly frustrating waste of time.
• The colourful building where I bumped into Londonist's editor-at-large and we both agreed the Open House programme was thin gruel this year.
• The historic building they're trying to redevelop but all the schemes keep falling through due to the difficulty of replacing the main thing that needs urgently replacing, and all they'd let you see was the lobby.
• The outdoor location where I turned up convinced I'd just missed a tour and would be hanging around for the best part of an hour for the next, only to find the tours weren't actually on the hour and I walked straight onto one.
• The private house where they'd spent a fortune remodelling the interior, shoes off please, and the four storey open plan design was indeed impressive but it did feel odd just wandering into someone's bathroom, and I told the owner she was brave and she said "yes lots of people have told us that", and then she confessed she was really hoping a location scout dropped by and wanted to hire the place for a TV drama, and I shall be looking out for that.
• The garden that's open seven days a week so I'm not sure why it was in the Open House programme, although it is a proper little tropical oasis, indeed the sign on the greenhouse said Please Keep This Door Closed but it was wide open yesterday because it was 33°C outside, and I left the volunteers enjoying a home-cooked lunch.
• The tetchy building where they weren't letting you in unless you waved photo ID and had your photo taken, but once you were inside they were giving away free memory sticks (surplus from a conference held six years ago) so that was a win.
• The small building where the volunteers were lovely and they all had name badges, and one of the badges said SHEILA and I looked and it was the actress Sheila Hancock, she's 90 now, because this building was important to her and I made sure to say thankyou on the way out.
Let's do four of those in more detail (not necessarily in the above order). (all four are also open today)
You may consider the United Nations a New York-based organisation but it has several satellite agencies of global importance, one of which is based in the UK. The IMO's responsibility is to oversee the safety and security of shipping and to set standards for marine pollution by ships, which also means it has 2% of the world's carbon emissions in its sights and is seeking to reduce them. Its HQ has a prominent location close to Lambeth Bridge, diametrically opposite the Palace of Westminster, and because it overlooks the tidal Thames I guess it's technically on the coast. That said I'd never really noticed it before despite the fact it's been here since 1983 and has a statuesque bronze sailor on the prow of a ship out front, so hurrah for Open House for bringing it to wider attention.
The central atrium stretches to a large delegates lounge on the first floor, surrounded by model ships and other maritime artefacts gifted by national governments, and is so of its era that you could imagine James Bond leaping from the staircase but it'd be Roger Moore. Beyond all this is the crescent-shapedchamber where the IMO meets every fortnight or so, every country at its own alphabetically arranged desk (we're between Tanzania and the UAE), with faded translators' booths placed high behind the Secretary General's chair. But for Open House there was also the opportunity to take the lift up into office corridors that smelt increasingly of coffee, because this is where the work gets done, and then walk out through the canteen onto the 4th floor roof terrace. This has a great view downriver, most notably of Parliament, a building which IMHO takes decisions of far less global significance than the IMO.
Rather than repair their bomb-damaged gothic church in Lorrimore Square, parishioners opted instead for a full-on modernist rebuild. The end result is a startling spiky concrete building with a copper roof and colourful honeycomb windows, jam-packed with triangles because they're supposed to remind you of the Trinity. St Paul's is both church and community centre so it has a nursery underneath, which used to mean it was very much not step-free but they have since managed to install a lift. And although it's arresting from outside where it really shines is within, especially on a sunny day when the light is streaming in through glass the colour of an entire box of chocolate box wrappers.
Although you can get a lot from a cursory wander the best interaction is a tour, in this case a parishioner apologising that the printouts had run out so follow me. He said the rear textile screen had been created by the designer of the CND logo and pointed out a unique spot under the balcony where anything you say resonates unexpectedly. He wasn't wrong. He said that refurbishing any damaged windows was difficult because they're embedded in the concrete and that they're always fundraising to help mitigate the leaky roof. He pointed out the threefold symbolism of Freda's modernist crucifix and flicked through a treasured scrapbook recalling the church's unique evolution. And he led us into the Lady Chapel behind the altar, which otherwise is easily missed, and agreed yes a lot of people say it reminds of the Tardis. Maybe check for yourself next weekend.
This one's always on the Open House list, a pioneering 1970s council estate overlooking Brockwell Park, and I thought I'd better visit before Lambeth council knock it down. They were once really proud of it, so much so that they hired the best architect and insisted on top class construction techniques, taking full advantage of the slope and existing tree cover. The design intermingles 1-bed bungalows, 2-bed houses and 4-bedroom maisonettes to cater for all stages of life and cunningly hides all the car parking underground to create a seamless pedestrianised whole. And although it looks spacious it's actually sufficiently dense to make replacing it economically difficult, not that the council seems terribly keen on repairing the existing buildings anyway, and essentially if you turn up for a tour of the estate you're in for 45-minutes of Lambeth-bashing. Justifiably so, I'd say.
The looping circuit starts at the rotunda, the focal community space. It takes in the upper walks, the winding ways and the lumpy parkside greenspace, which locals know as the 'Teletubbies'. It passes copious amounts of scaffolding covering roofs that were ripped off 'like sardine cans' during Storm Eunice eighteen months ago, as yet unrepaired. It passes cosy flats whose occupants have been here decades and homes rented out to property guardians, because the tenant mix is complex. And it might have taken less than 45 minutes had the guide not repeatedly stopped to greet neighbours and to reassure them no, this was just another Open House tour and how was their family getting on? With such cohesion it's easy to see how residents have managed to hold the council's regeneration plans at bay for so long, and long may that continue because any replacement would be dead in comparison.
Quakers have been meeting in Hammersmith for centuries, until recently in a lowly building between King Street and the A4. But their meeting house recently found itself in the way of Hammersmith & Fulham's Civic Centre Development Plan so the council offered to move them elsewhere in return for building something more modern. The Quakers agreed on the understanding that their former site would only be used for affordable housing, and also demanded that their new place was built to the highest sustainable standards while maximising energy efficiency using ethical supply chains. If only everyone were as principled imagine how much better the nation's architectural stock could be.
The building is focused around a circular meeting room, loftily lit by clerestory windows. The ceiling's untreated larch, the floors are oiled oak and the cupboards laminated birch, providing peaceful ambience for a contemplative gathering. Separate rooms include a well-stocked library and a smaller meeting room, each doubling up as hireable spaces, indeed I had a lovely chat with the lady who runs a monthly support group for Ukranian refugees here. One worshipper pointed out the porthole vents embedded in reception and another the four different kinds of bricks in the walls, although he also said he preferred the rectangular shape of the previous hall to this showy circle because you can't please everyone. It very much pleased me.
Sorry it was a long day, not to mention the hottest day of the year, and I have to go out and do all this again today so I haven't managed to completely finish writing this, I need some sleep, but I will come back and fill in the gaps honest, quite possibly in two or three days' time when nobody's reading it any more, and in the meantime I've created an album on Flickr with more photos so you can see some of what I haven't written about yet.
