For efficiency's sake I thought I'd concentrate on one borough for this year's London Open House, like I did a few years back with Haringey and Southwark. Skedaddling around Camden wasn't as easy as you might think, either in the planning or the execution, but I made it to a fair few fascinating places. Here's four.
Alexandra Road: It looks like an ordinary street on the map, but Rowley Way is anything but. Futuristicterracesslope down to a pedestrianised curve, six storeys high on one side and four on the other. Low-rise, high-density, that's the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate. All the buildings are cast from white concrete, less pristine now than in the 1970s, and following the line of the Euston railway. Together they resemble a Blake's 7 filmset rather than the backstreets of Kilburn, and were part of Camden Council's pioneering social housing scheme. Every flat boasts its own inward-looking terrace, draped with plants or bikes or washing or whatever, making this a strikingly interactive community where it's nigh impossible to hide. At the far end of the curve is a humming power station with three thin chimneys, alongside a Tenants Hall with weekly food co-op (please tie your dog up outside before entering). Cars have been banished to a subterranean undercroft beneath the paved path, a claustrophobic dystopia lined by imposing garages. On the southern side is a linearpark, narrow but four acres long, with grass and gardens and hard courts spread out along its length. On a sunny Saturday it's all rather lovely, although the park's clearly seen better days and is under threat from continued disrepair. For Open House we were permitted to enter one of the less upgraded maisonettes, but shoes off first please (always select your socks on Open House day with care). The duplex interior was adequately-sized if not spacious, especially upstairs where a wooden partition could be drawn back to link kitchen and living room. The brown tiles, wooden stairs and ducted heating screamed Seventies, although noteverybody across the estate has kept theirs. We chatted to the owner, who's been here almost since the place was built, and is fiercely proud of the concrete hilltown she calls home. Watch this 20 minute documentary about living on Rowley Way and I think you'll see what she means. [six photos]
Cecil Sharp House: London's folk music hub isn't some club in the West End, it's a little-known building in Primrose Hill. Tucked onto the triangular site where Gloucester Avenue meets Regents Park Road, look out for the white shield announcing that the brick shell beyond is home to the English Folk Dance and Song Society. They arrived here in 1929, five years after the death of Cecil Sharp, the man who'd inspired construction of the building. He'd specified precise dimensions for all the rooms, and the need for a library to house his collection of folk-related books, but never saw his dream realised. I think he'd be impressed today. The place was buzzing on Saturday with attendees of all ages, and most definitely not a dead-end backwater for the retired. Our guide led us into the barndance-sized mainhall to see Ivon Hitchen's mural, for which privilege we had to interrupt the term's first class of "Melodeon for Beginners". Sorry. To see the stags in the practice room downstairs we had to sneak into the back of "Intermediate Banjo" just as the lesson was kicking off. Sorry. Even nipping into the bar, formerly the men's changing room, we stumbled upon three gentlemen clearing away dirty glasses so that they could jam their way through the afternoon. Apologies. The librarian was keen to see us, in his well-ordered room where sea shanties, ballads and nursery rhymes are all shelved separately. I noted that the magazine rack contained subscriptions to Concertina World, Dulcimer Players News and Fiddle On, amongst many others. A broad programme of concerts and ceilidhs are held in the main hall, indeed Time Out readers have voted Cecil Sharp House their second favourite live music venue in the capital. It strikes me that thousands of Londoners who don't know the place exists would undoubtedly enjoy all it has to offer, be that participating or as part of an audience. In case that's you, my apologies, but now you know.
Royal College of Physicians: The professional body that oversees Britain's doctors used to be based in a creaky building off Pall Mall. One bomb changed that, and for their post-war rebuild they commissioned something very different indeed on the edge of Regent's Park. Architect DenysLasdun could have designed something 'safe' to stand alongside Nash's terraces, but instead persuaded the august body to accept a tempered Brutalist design. The mainblock has a blocky mosaic facing, perched on non-classical columns, with Corbusian utilities jutting from the roof. Adjacent is a sunken lecture theatre, faced in contrasting black brick joined at a sculpted corner (I learnt all this on the architecture tour with Barnabas, which was excellent). The interior focus is a twistingstairway rising through a balcony-fringed void, which could have looked like a shopping mall, but in Sir Denys's hands is somewhat more sophisticated. He went on to design the University of East Anglia and the National Theatre, but it's this building which gets the Grade I listing. If you ever end up taking medical exams you'll likely end up receiving your award inside, but if you can't wait that long then regular tours of the building are available all year round.
Swiss Cottage Library: This modernist gem was built as the borough of Hampstead's central library, and completed just before local government reorganisation in 1965. The architect Sir Basil Spence was also responsible for Coventry Cathedral, and although there's no stained glass here there is a cavernous feeling of space and light. Arts up one end, sciences at the other, with open spiralstaircases to link the main floor and mezzanine. The edge of the library building has fins, and once matched by the swimming baths nextdoor (although the pool's since been knocked down and replaced). Our Open House guide used to work here in the early days, and revelled in the opportunity to dig around again in the book stacks beneath the public floors. Should you ever fancy a sit down with a book or periodical, plus a drink and a light bite from a well run cafe, I'd bear Camden's leading library in mind.
Few social housing projects are instantly recognisable, but the silhouette of West London's Trellick Tower couldn't be anything else. Nothing else apart from the Balfron Tower, that is, its smaller sister in Poplar. Both were designed by Erno Goldfinger, the Hungarian architect, whose home at 2 Willow Road I told you about a while back. Trellick's widely agreed to be his masterpiece - a commission from the Greater London Council in 1966 - and the embodiment of his Brutalist concrete-loving style. To get inside you need to buy, or rent (most people rent), or else have very good friends who live in this thin highrise tower. Or you need to wait for Open House weekend and get lucky. I got lucky.
Yet again, the Open House pre-booking system proved incredibly flaky. I tried for a Trellick ticket during the only hour the online booking system was vaguely operational (so much frustration, so many refreshes), and thought I'd been unsuccessful. Then two different emails arrived each telling me I'd got a ticket, but both with the same ID code, so really only one. When I turned up at the tower yesterday the concierge buzzed me in and gave me a leaflet, but no names were checked and nobody ever asked whether I had any right to be here. Our tour was under-attended (I guess the hideous weather battering North Kensington put some people off) so anyone could have walked in off the street to make up the numbers. Even you. I'm not sure how Open House could organise pre-bookings better, but it seems they could hardly organise them worse.
It looks lively enough at Carnival, but the top of Golborne Road's no place to be in a September gale. The street lay empty as the rain beat down, and only the foolhardy were still dogwalking in nearby Meanwhile Gardens. One man sheltered in the doorway of the off licence, another two were chatting under the overhang by the betting shop. It was rammed to bursting in the Trellick Lounge, which sounds like it ought to be an upmarket eaterie, but was instead a cafe cum social club where local males congregate to watch big screen TV. The entrance to the Trellick Tower is currently mounted with scaffolding, above which rises a narrow cliff face specked with slit windows. This is the lift tower, used by residents to gain access to the upper floors of the adjacent accommodation. And sticking out at the tip is the plant room where the boiler and hot water storage tanks reside, or used to until made irrelevant by the 70s oil crisis.
The entrance hall used to be open access but now there's a controlled door and a concierge, which has done wonders for the block's previous unsavoury reputation. The lobby's narrower than you might imagine, but then the whole thing has to fit inside the footprint of the lift tower so there's not much space. A noticeboard alerts tenants to important issues (do not feed the squirrels!), while the far wall is brightened by a geometric pattern of stained glass rectangles. At some point in the last 40 years a CCTV camera has been added, and even that's been done semi-sympathetically within a bold green square, such are the demanding requirements of Grade II* listed status. As each new face entered the lobby it was fairly easy to identify who was a resident and who an Open House visitor. Trellick Tower's not the uniformly aspirational living space many would believe, with a relatively small proportion of the 217 flats owned by eager architecture aficionados.
The lifts are currently being upgraded, with only two out of three in service which delays progress up and down the building. They stop only every third floor, due to the peculiar way the main building is laid out with longitudinal corridors on multiples of three only. On reaching your target floor you exit into a double height lobby with six slit windows in the wall to your right. The attention to detail is impressive, for social housing, even down to the tiling which is a different colour on every floor. A solid-looking doorway leads off to the left, with curved concrete surround and a blocky tinted lintel. Step through and you're into the connecting tube, suspended umpteen storeys high looking down over Kensal Town and the Westway. If you've no head for heights, best live somewhere else.
Each corridor is bright and well-maintained, leading eventually to a second emergency staircase at the very far end. One wall's glass, and canal and rooftops, while the other is lined with more than the usual number of front doors. Cleverly all the flats on floors x+1 and x-1 have their entrance on floor x, with stairs beyond either up or down to the appropriate living space. Some are two-storey maisonettes, others rather smaller one-bedroom dwellings, but all somehow fit together in a complex multi-level jigsaw.
For Open House we were kindly allowed entry into two flats, of very different scales. They were neither exactly as built, nor would you expect them to be, but several original features remained. Each had a certain boxiness, though with plenty of space, a true sense of light and a larger kitchen than I might have imagined. Communal heating, paid for out of the service charge, allows residents carte blanche to pump out warmth all year round. And everyone gets a balcony, south-ish facing, which I'm told helps create a perfect elevated suntrap. In yesterday's grim weather, however, the sliding doors were best kept shut to keep the wind and driving rain outside.
The two owners of the Open House "show flats" clearly love living in the Trellick Tower, in one case infectiously so. I'm not quite sure I'd be so keen, more because of access arrangements than architectural quibbles, and because I couldn't afford to buy. If this has whetted your appetite then Chris currently has a flat for sale on the 21st floor, and a bespoke website that'll entice you still further. You'll need half a million pounds, which is bloody good going for a former council flat, plus a substantial wodge of cash to pay for upcoming blockwide refurbishments. But how cool to live in Erno's iconic tower, overlooked by nobody, king of the sky.
In six years time, if all goes to plan, the first Crossrail trains will glide into Canary Wharf to collect passengers. The shopping centre associated with the new station should be with us by Easter 2015, so you'll be able to drop by and buy sushi relatively soon. But to get any lower, four floors down where the platforms are, that's a much longer wait. Unless you were lucky in the London Open House raffle, that is, in which case you might have slipped in yesterday.
Sheesh, the London Open House pre-booking system has been a disaster this year. They promised an online launch several times, then retreated when the system wholly and utterly failed. They shifted the deadline and promised the system would work better, only it didn't, and only a random handful of desperate web-refreshers managed to book anything. They apologised and shifted to an email-only lottery, which probably worked better, although I applied for lots and won absolutely nothing. A complete mess all told, and even more so in the execution. According to the cribsheet at Crossrail security our tour had 20 pre-booked attendees, except the majority of these turned out to be illusionary, accidentally generated during the website booking meltdown a month ago. Only six of us gained entrance with official documentation, and all the remaining places were filled by speculative queuers who'd ignored the "pre-book only" message and turned up anyway. Well done to them for trying, but a kick in the teeth to anyone who failed to book a place and stayed away. The snowballing success of London Open House (which is great) has created total reservation instability (which is not), and the team desperately needs to sort out something better by next year.
The Jubilee line station at Canary Wharf was created by draining one of the existing docks and digging a deep hole. The Crossrail station's being built in much the same way, this time in the North Quay. Construction work began in 2009, and since then a vast concrete structure has arisen. The top two storeys are visible above the waterline, a good 250m long, and destined to be full of retail and restaurants. I find it hard to believe that Canary Wharf needs yet more shopping space, but I guess demand for lunchtime browsing and after-work entertainment is insatiable. Rather worthier is the linear park that's due to appear on the rooftop, a rare strip of greenspace hereabouts, and part of wider plans to knit Poplar more closely into its wealthier neighbour.
Entrance to Crossrail's construction zone can be found directly underneath West India Quay DLR station. Nobody gets too far inside without protection, which for those of us on the tour meant hi-vis, helmet, goggles and gloves. "Feel free to take take photos," said the manager in charge, although that's easier said than done when your fingers are encased in safetywear. We crossed the water via a ramped bridge and entered the heart of the site. One day there'll be stairs and disabled-friendly lifts, but for now access to the lower areas is only by hoist. I had visions of this being some flaky maritime contraption, but instead it was more like a miners' cage, perfectly safe for lowering up to 2000kg of human cargo into the abyss. "Don't worry about the jolt when it starts up," our guide reassured us, "that's perfectly normal."
The doors opened at what will one day be ticket hall level. It's a massive ticket hall, broad and very long, comparable to that of the Jubilee line station a few hundred metres away. Expect a direct link to enable swift interchange, via a passageway also linking this shopping mall to the lower mall at Canary Wharf. Developers are expecting 36000 passengers an hour to pass through this station during the morning peak, that's ten a second, so the ticket gates (or whatever swish technology we have by then) needs to be able to cope. It's all a bit nondescript down here at the moment, a lengthy concrete cuboid plus scaffolding lit by bright lights, but expect a much more architectural sheen when you finally arrive here.
Steps twist down to the bottom of the station - very temporary metal stairs descending into the void, down and down. The final landing is labelled "Level -6" and is approximately where the platforms will be. We had one more flight to go because there are no platforms as yet, only the box in which they'll eventually appear once tracks have been laid. We stood in the path of oncoming trains, a few years too early, and gawped around. It is a very longstation, as I think I've already mentioned, but it needs to be long to cope with ten-carriage trains (and the possibility of later extension). Getting on at the right end of the train is going to be important come 2018 - board at the front and you'll alight at Moorgate, board at the rear and you'll alight at Liverpool Street. There'll also be floor-to-ceiling electronic platform doors dividing waiting passengers from arriving trains, much more substantial than on the Jubilee line, with all the fire safety benefits such sealing-off brings.
The main reason there are no tracks yet is that so far there are no tunnels. Four giant metal hoops stand ready to be pierced, two at each end of the station, their interior supported by thick piles until breakthrough comes. Crossrail's tunnel boring machines are due to arrive here next April, after burrowing a mile from the Limmo peninsula at the mouth of the Lea. Then in July they'll be off again, this time towards Stepney and Whitechapel, bringing dreams of high-speed commuting that little bit closer. We were allowed right up to, even into, the incoming eastbound portal, to see the concrete octagon within the metal circle at close hand. Various people posed for pictures ("this is me wearing serious safety gear stood in front of an important wall"), then took photos of their partners for good measure.
You could tell that the project manager leading our tour party was proud of his team's achievements so far, and rightly so. Design and building have been undertaken by Canary Wharf Contractors Limited, not TfL or any of the usual national construction companies, and so far they're delivering ahead of schedule. I'm sure he'd have stayed talking for much longer given half a chance, except there was another tour party arriving behind so we had to end our subterranean odyssey forthwith. Another ride in the hoist awaited, this time from 25 metres below water level back to the surface. And that's the last I expect to see of this amazing station until I come back by train in six years time, this chamber transformed. You'll all be saying "wow, it's a step-change in the London transport experience", but we Open House visitors will also remember it as a hole.
And no, my camera didn't function well in the artificial gloom. I grabbed a few blurryshots, but if you want something better then IanVisits and M@ from Londonist were taken down to platform level a few months back, and not a huge amount has changed down there since.
Alexandra Road: It looks like an ordinary street on the map, but Rowley Way is anything but. Futuristic terraces slope down to a pedestrianised curve, six storeys high on one side and four on the other. Low-rise, high-density, that's the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate. All the buildings are cast from white concrete, less pristine now than in the 1970s, and following the line of the Euston railway. Together they resemble a Blake's 7 filmset rather than the backstreets of Kilburn, and were part of Camden Council's pioneering social housing scheme. Every flat boasts its own inward-looking terrace, draped with plants or bikes or washing or whatever, making this a strikingly interactive community where it's nigh impossible to hide. At the far end of the curve is a humming power station with three thin chimneys, alongside a Tenants Hall with weekly food co-op (please tie your dog up outside before entering). Cars have been banished to a subterranean undercroft beneath the paved path, a claustrophobic dystopia lined by imposing garages. On the southern side is a linear park, narrow but four acres long, with grass and gardens and hard courts spread out along its length. On a sunny Saturday it's all rather lovely, although the park's clearly seen better days and is under threat from continued disrepair. For Open House we were permitted to enter one of the less upgraded maisonettes, but shoes off first please (always select your socks on Open House day with care). The duplex interior was adequately-sized if not spacious, especially upstairs where a wooden partition could be drawn back to link kitchen and living room. The brown tiles, wooden stairs and ducted heating screamed Seventies, although not everybody across the estate has kept theirs. We chatted to the owner, who's been here almost since the place was built, and is fiercely proud of the concrete hilltown she calls home. Watch this 20 minute documentary about living on Rowley Way and I think you'll see what she means. [six photos]
Cecil Sharp House: London's folk music hub isn't some club in the West End, it's a little-known building in Primrose Hill. Tucked onto the triangular site where Gloucester Avenue meets Regents Park Road, look out for the white shield announcing that the brick shell beyond is home to the English Folk Dance and Song Society. They arrived here in 1929, five years after the death of Cecil Sharp, the man who'd inspired construction of the building. He'd specified precise dimensions for all the rooms, and the need for a library to house his collection of folk-related books, but never saw his dream realised. I think he'd be impressed today. The place was buzzing on Saturday with attendees of all ages, and most definitely not a dead-end backwater for the retired. Our guide led us into the barndance-sized main hall to see Ivon Hitchen's mural, for which privilege we had to interrupt the term's first class of "Melodeon for Beginners". Sorry. To see the stags in the practice room downstairs we had to sneak into the back of "Intermediate Banjo" just as the lesson was kicking off. Sorry. Even nipping into the bar, formerly the men's changing room, we stumbled upon three gentlemen clearing away dirty glasses so that they could jam their way through the afternoon. Apologies. The librarian was keen to see us, in his well-ordered room where sea shanties, ballads and nursery rhymes are all shelved separately. I noted that the magazine rack contained subscriptions to Concertina World, Dulcimer Players News and Fiddle On, amongst many others. A broad programme of concerts and ceilidhs are held in the main hall, indeed Time Out readers have voted Cecil Sharp House their second favourite live music venue in the capital. It strikes me that thousands of Londoners who don't know the place exists would undoubtedly enjoy all it has to offer, be that participating or as part of an audience. In case that's you, my apologies, but now you know.
Royal College of Physicians: The professional body that oversees Britain's doctors used to be based in a creaky building off Pall Mall. One bomb changed that, and for their post-war rebuild they commissioned something very different indeed on the edge of Regent's Park. Architect Denys Lasdun could have designed something 'safe' to stand alongside Nash's terraces, but instead persuaded the august body to accept a tempered Brutalist design. The main block has a blocky mosaic facing, perched on non-classical columns, with Corbusian utilities jutting from the roof. Adjacent is a sunken lecture theatre, faced in contrasting black brick joined at a sculpted corner (I learnt all this on the architecture tour with Barnabas, which was excellent). The interior focus is a twisting stairway rising through a balcony-fringed void, which could have looked like a shopping mall, but in Sir Denys's hands is somewhat more sophisticated. He went on to design the University of East Anglia and the National Theatre, but it's this building which gets the Grade I listing. If you ever end up taking medical exams you'll likely end up receiving your award inside, but if you can't wait that long then regular tours of the building are available all year round.
Open House: Trellick Tower
It looks lively enough at Carnival, but the top of Golborne Road's no place to be in a September gale. The street lay empty as the rain beat down, and only the foolhardy were still dogwalking in nearby Meanwhile Gardens. One man sheltered in the doorway of the off licence, another two were chatting under the overhang by the betting shop. It was rammed to bursting in the Trellick Lounge, which sounds like it ought to be an upmarket eaterie, but was instead a cafe cum social club where local males congregate to watch big screen TV. The entrance to the Trellick Tower is currently mounted with scaffolding, above which rises a narrow cliff face specked with slit windows. This is the lift tower, used by residents to gain access to the upper floors of the adjacent accommodation. And sticking out at the tip is the plant room where the boiler and hot water storage tanks reside, or used to until made irrelevant by the 70s oil crisis.
For Open House we were kindly allowed entry into two flats, of very different scales. They were neither exactly as built, nor would you expect them to be, but several original features remained. Each had a certain boxiness, though with plenty of space, a true sense of light and a larger kitchen than I might have imagined. Communal heating, paid for out of the service charge, allows residents carte blanche to pump out warmth all year round. And everyone gets a balcony, south-ish facing, which I'm told helps create a perfect elevated suntrap. In yesterday's grim weather, however, the sliding doors were best kept shut to keep the wind and driving rain outside.
In six years time, if all goes to plan, the first Crossrail trains will glide into Canary Wharf to collect passengers. The shopping centre associated with the new station should be with us by Easter 2015, so you'll be able to drop by and buy sushi relatively soon. But to get any lower, four floors down where the platforms are, that's a much longer wait. Unless you were lucky in the London Open House raffle, that is, in which case you might have slipped in yesterday.
Entrance to Crossrail's construction zone can be found directly underneath West India Quay DLR station. Nobody gets too far inside without protection, which for those of us on the tour meant hi-vis, helmet, goggles and gloves. "Feel free to take take photos," said the manager in charge, although that's easier said than done when your fingers are encased in safetywear. We crossed the water via a ramped bridge and entered the heart of the site. One day there'll be stairs and disabled-friendly lifts, but for now access to the lower areas is only by hoist. I had visions of this being some flaky maritime contraption, but instead it was more like a miners' cage, perfectly safe for lowering up to 2000kg of human cargo into the abyss. "Don't worry about the jolt when it starts up," our guide reassured us, "that's perfectly normal."
Steps twist down to the bottom of the station - very temporary metal stairs descending into the void, down and down. The final landing is labelled "Level -6" and is approximately where the platforms will be. We had one more flight to go because there are no platforms as yet, only the box in which they'll eventually appear once tracks have been laid. We stood in the path of oncoming trains, a few years too early, and gawped around. It is a very long station, as I think I've already mentioned, but it needs to be long to cope with ten-carriage trains (and the possibility of later extension). Getting on at the right end of the train is going to be important come 2018 - board at the front and you'll alight at Moorgate, board at the rear and you'll alight at Liverpool Street. There'll also be floor-to-ceiling electronic platform doors dividing waiting passengers from arriving trains, much more substantial than on the Jubilee line, with all the fire safety benefits such sealing-off brings.
The main reason there are no tracks yet is that so far there are no tunnels. Four giant metal hoops stand ready to be pierced, two at each end of the station, their interior supported by thick piles until breakthrough comes. Crossrail's tunnel boring machines are due to arrive here next April, after burrowing a mile from the Limmo peninsula at the mouth of the Lea. Then in July they'll be off again, this time towards Stepney and Whitechapel, bringing dreams of high-speed commuting that little bit closer. We were allowed right up to, even into, the incoming eastbound portal, to see the concrete octagon within the metal circle at close hand. Various people posed for pictures ("this is me wearing serious safety gear stood in front of an important wall"), then took photos of their partners for good measure.
