For completeness' sake, Saturday's three other Open House visits.
Open House:The Law Society (Chancery Lane) The Bicentennial One
A big anniversary is often an excuse to open up your historic HQ for Open House, which'll be why the 200-year-old Law Society chose to welcome visitors this year. They also did things properly with a free 24-page tour booklet and a full-colour double-sided map so you didn't get lost on the way round, because you'd expect nothing less from solicitors. They're based halfway down Chancery Lane, just round the corner from the Royal Courts of Justice, in the grand classical building with the gold lions on the fenceposts. The walk-through tour of their abode kicked off with the Reading Room, where 19th century lawyers would have networked while perusing the newspapers, before continuing to four other equally splendid (and hireable) spaces.
The blue Wedgwood frieze above the Library complements shelves and shelves of referential leatherbound volumes. The stained glass in the Common Room is partially Tudor and the fireplace is de Morgan. The Grand Staircase sweeps upwards and is conveniently located for the Six Clerks restaurant. The portrait hanging in the David Lloyd George Room commemorating the royal visit for the 150th anniversary looked so impressively unlike the Queen I'd have taken it down. And if you'd played your cards right you could have moved on from here to Lincoln's Inn and spent an entire half day absorbing all things legal, rather than traipsing out to the suburbs like what I did.
Emanuel Swedenborg was an 18th century Swedish scientist, philosopher and general polymath who, at the age of 57, had a vision in a London tavern and refocused his life on all things spiritual. He wrote copiously on theological matters, including his revelatory work Apocalypse Revealed, inspiring William Blake and a horde of followers long after his mortal death. The Swedenborg Society has been based in a former Georgian house in Bloomsbury since 1925, which is why when you walk in it looks like a bookshop with a coffee counter and a rare bullseye window.
Beyond is a lecture hall with seating for 100, also a gallery but that was closed pending a new exhibition opening on Friday, should you fancy dropping in then. A green Doulton-tiled staircase leads down to a spooky basement, close to the rumble of the Central line, and up to a library of original volumes, plaster skulls and a table Swedenborg supposedly sat at. They tried to sell me a book about his life in the way out, and it must be quite a tale given so many still pay so much attention so many years later.
In 2010 I spent Open House weekend going round several Town Halls, and was particularly unimpressed by Brent's because the vibe was 'brown' and because the building was about to close in favour of a newbuild nearer Wembley Stadium. Five years later the town hall was reborn as a French private school and ten years on it was open again for Open House so I went back. I was a lot more impressed this time, not least because I was shown round by a senior member of staff and a student demonstrating their language skills.
The council chamber became an assembly hall, the council suite an examinations room and the mayor's parlour, fairly predictably, the headteacher's office. Not everything fitted in so the Science department was accommodated in a new annexe where gas taps and fume cupboards were more easily engineered. The marble staircase is far more elegant than an educational establishment would be gifted these days, and indeed more slippery, but when you run a school in a listed building you can't change too much and the whole thing can become a practical headache. The 1930s civic safe is still in situ for example, halfway down a freshly-accessible ramped corridor, because it resisted all attempts to get it out.
We ended up on the roof, as so many Open House tours do, where a glass pavilion doubles as a staffroom and a long green terrace provides space for al fresco marking. Wembley's arch can be plainly seen close by, although not the stadium because that's disappeared behind flats since the school opened. I also liked the way that the BT Tower aligned almost perfectly beside the Shard, iconic twins on the far horizon, although I doubt many pupils will have noticed the near-conjunction. "Did you get your biro?" asked the gatekeeper on my way out and oui, certainement.
Yesterday's Open House tally was only three.
All three were hour-long tours of buildings.
Here's a quick summary.
• The one where I was nearly the only person on the tour but a latecomer scuppered that.
• The one where I was mighty relieved not to be the only person on the tour.
• The one where we were plied with free coffee, cake and nuts beforehand.
• The one filmed throughout by a proud relative which will have created a tediously unwatchable video.
• The one where we weren't supposed to be looking at the trains.
• The one where we went up on the roof in the dry.
• The one where we went up on the roof in the rain.
• The 'omigod look how high up we are' one.
• The two that burned and have been rebuilt.
The University of Greenwich proper sprawls, not just across Eltham and Woolwich but within the environs of Maritime Greenwich. As of last week there are also plans to tie-up with the University of Kent, roping in campuses in Medway and Canterbury to help prevent the latter institution going bust. This site visit was to a modern building in the town centre which was officially celebrating its 11th birthday yesterday, although I didn't see cake mainly because it was a Sunday and term hasn't started yet. Cue that Open House staple, the backroom/backstairs tour led by an employee with as many nips out onto the roof as possible.
The main building here houses the university library - three floorsworth of books shifted from less accessible shelves in the Old Royal Naval College. The building operates on a silence gradient with talking allowed on the lowest floors, quiet communication on 1 and 2 and total stumm up top. The central staircase has been made prominent (and the lifts hidden) to encourage walking up. There are hundreds of docking stations for laptops, be they hired or the students' own, but only a couple of tiny corners for printing. And if you have the right pass you can enter the backrooms where the books are sorted, the staff have desks and the walls aren't generally as nicely finished. The chief librarian's office has the best view, a fabulous panorama past St Alphege church towards Canary Wharf and the Cutty Sark.
Up top is "probably Europe’s largest teaching and learning green roof" but not all in one, instead divided up into fourteen separate landscaped chunks. Some are mostly paved, others considerably gardenier, the best of the colour having peaked because there's nobody up here to admire them in the summer. Back inside a single 20m² green wall brightens the wall of the architecture faculty, much admired but it'd be far too expensive to consider installing one elsewhere. And by the time the well-oiled tour's delivered you back to the foyer, the staff and student sides of the building rightly ticked, Open House has worked its magic and yet another building oft seen from the street is no longer such a mystery.
Just as there are multiple denominations of Christianity so there are many forms of Islam. The Ahmadi sect numbers over 20 million followers, believes Islam's purpose is to bring peace to the world and originated in the Punjab in 1889. Its founder broke with established beliefs by claiming he was the final prophet and has since been succeeded by five caliphs, the most recent of whom lives in a former boarding school in deepest Surrey. Construction of their first British mosque began in September 1925, just up the road in SW18, and this latest incarnation was opened in 1999 on a former Express Dairy site beside Morden South station. It's massive, supposedly the largest mosque in western Europe, and throws open its doors to all whenever Open House comes round.
The biggest building up front isn't the mosque, it's the admin and reception block, a multi-storey stack of function halls and offices. It isn't original, the previous admin block having been accidentally destroyed in 2015 by a 16 year-old worshipper who failed to realise he'd set the place on fire. Following much fundraising the loftier marble-fronted replacement opened in March 2023, an event coinciding with the 19th National UK Peace Symposium. Were you to head inside the updated version you might find a twin studio TV complex, a museum filled with prophet/caliph-related artefacts, a library that goes far beyond the Koran and a huge hall setting up for a gold-themed wedding. Daily worshippers are however more likely to walk round the side of the building up a long flower-bedecked covered walkway to reach the main mosque building round the back. Shoes off.
The mosque is very plainly decorated inside, a huge understated space with a few words in Arabic displayed around the interior of the central dome. Walls are white so as not to distract from the most important activity which is prayer. 6000 men can be accommodated on the expansive carpet, while women have a smaller room out of sight nearer the main car park. A separate balcony with seating provides somewhere for older worshippers to sit, and also provides a truly excellent view across the adjacent Northern line train depot but this of course is nobody's focus of attention. In a sad reflection of our times I saw multiple locations around the site with belt conveyers for security screening, although we only had to walk through a single scanning gate. And as we walked out, eyes opened, an ever-increasing stream of local men headed inside as the clock ticked round to midday prayers. A place of peace, not a place to fear, as an increasingly large proportion of the population might well need reminding.
BAC used to be Battersea Town Hall when that was a separate borough, but became an arts centre in 1974 after Wandsworth council decided they no longer needed it. The redbrick & stonewarren was built in 1893 on land donated by Jane Senior, Britain's first female civil servant, hence the belated blue plaque stuck on the front in July. The Neo Renaissance interior is immediately appealing with a bee-tiled mosaic floor, evocative passageways and a divided staircase climbing to a skylit arched arcade. I arrived on the tour just too late to discover which of the cherubs in the cornice frieze had raised a cheeky giggle.
Our first treat was the Council Chamber, although it's currently part of a 'strictly no photographs" artist takeover so we were in and out in seconds. Our second treat was a behind-the-scenes staircase to the upper walkway above the central courtyard, site of an extra floor plonked on top for staff offices, although the "incredible views of the city" weren't all that. More impressive was the Octagonal Hall, a cast-iron glass-domed foyer featuring a gilded quotation from Richard III, restored in 1999, although anyone can walk in off the streets and gawp upwards. But most impressive of all was the Grand Hall, not least because it was destroyed by fire in March 2015 and has been rebuilt following a massive fundraising effort, now with a suitably charred aesthetic. What an amazing venue.
"OK lets go up to the Grid," said our guide, "and whatever you do don't drop anything." We climbed the backstairs to the balcony where the Edwardian pipe organ resides, gaining an alternative elevated view of the main hall. But then we climbed another longer narrower staircase, stepped through a door and found ourselves standing just above the roof, peering down 12 metres to the floor through a modern timber lattice. Here the technicians hang their spotlights, floods and cables, pleased to have a sturdy metal walkway the full length of the hall rather than the usual parlous crawlspace. That's ten minutes I'll never forget. You just don't get this kind of experience on a normal day out, but as so often Open House totally delivers.
Yesterday's Open House tally was seven.
Here's a quick summary.
• The historic one I once went to for a work company briefing, but we were too bored by the upbeat objectives and too distracted by the strange saucy meat to be fully impressed by the building's impressive heritage.
• The weird one where I think they expected everyone to sit and watch a film for 35 minutes but I was more intrigued by finding a street of crocodiles in a box in the basement.
• The concrete one that was more Closed House when I arrived and found a locked gate, but thankfully two other visitors found the buzzer down the street. Also ditch the exit survey guys, it was ridiculously complicated.
• The domestic one ruled by a cat, which meant that when a visitor arrived with a dog they both had to stay outside on the pavement.
• The transformed one where I'd just missed a tour so the volunteer sped me upstairs to join them, except he added me to a different tour who were just about to finish and five minutes later I was back in reception.
• The miserable one which leapt straight into my Ten Worst Open House Experiences.
• The quirky one I reached just before closing time, and when I stepped inside I did literally go "oh wow bloody what?", and this is why you should always take full advantage of Open House every September.
Let's do four of those in more detail (not necessarily in the above order). (all four are also open today)
They had a thing about concrete in Camden in the 1960s, hence architects Howell, Killick, Partridge and Amis were given free rein to knock up a chunky grey secondary school near Tufnell Park station. Acland Burghley thus ended up with three radial towers, an L-shaped main block and a separate hexagonal Assembly Hall connected to the main building by a covered walkway. I can show you the original architects' model because they had that on display, and can confirm that the overall effect is like nowhere you went to school unless you are perhaps Eddy Grant, Sarah Brown, Ms Dynamite or one of the other alumni.
The jewel that helped the site get Grade II listing is the lowslung toplit Assembly Hall, a confection in timber and concrete with full public access for Open House. The aesthetic's softened somewhat by a galleryful of pupil's art around the walls, also an incongruous glitterball, but still strikingly of of its time. It's also a tad dark because it wasn't toplit enough and because the entire perimeter is taken up by a service corridor rather than windows. I can only imagine how different the hexagonal floor looks when covered with plastic chairs. Meanwhile outside is a peculiar dipped amphitheatre comprising all kinds of blocks from a previous school building, part-crumbled to the point where you probably wouldn't risk taking a class al fresco.
The whole thing's a now maintenance nightmare because running a school in a listed building's not easy, so Acland Burghley have come up with an imaginative solution which is A Hall For All. They want to invite the public in, particularly for arts events, also to improve acoustics, heating, accessibility for the school and the community alike, and what's more they were successful to the tune of £1m with a lottery grant earlier this year. Perhaps the most exciting part of the plans is to create the UK's first Museum of Brutalist Architecture, or MoBA for short, which'd be quite a coup for Tufnell Park. Obviously what you can do with somewhere that hosts school assemblies is limited, so I see the plans are only for "a physical presence in an allocated area of the Hall as well as a digital profile", which might be quite disappointing but fingers crossed it'll be somewhere worth visiting.
Open House:Triangle House (West Hampstead) The Micro One
One of the mainstays of Open House is the private home, particularly a private home occupied by the architect who designed it, well chuffed to show it off to an admiring audience. So here we are on a backstreet between Mill Lane and the Midland Main Line on a tiny triangular site which used to be occupied by a mechanic's workshop and is now a teensy place to live. Constrained by a ban on building upwards, architect Richard Brown contrived an open plan living room and a secondary bedroom/office area, plus a small leafy courtyard out front and ablutions in the back corner. It's full of clever space-saving touches like a staircase that doubles up as a chest of drawers, also the unusual feature that "the bed slides away under the bathroom". They've even slipped a piano in. See the architect's website or Instagram to get a fuller flavour, or drop round today between 11 and 4 to see how you can build a house for way less than £100k.
When the Kilburn estate was built in 1863 they went cheap on a church and built it from corrugated iron. By the turn of the century it was no longer needed and relegated to hall status, then in 1948 the lease was assigned to the Willesden Sea Cadets Corps for use as a ‘training quarters and social club’. So far so normal. Where things take a turn is the late 1950s when the hall was fitted out to represent the decommissioned naval ship HMS Bicester, a transformation undertaken with unusual zeal. The interior thus contains the ship's bridge, a lifeboat, several sheeted cabins and (in pride of place at the far end) a Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun. Step into one metal cabin to find old ropes and how to tie all the necessary knots, step into another to learn about ensigns and shackles, and a third to find the altar from the ship's chapel. The overall effect is extraordinary.
It may not continue. The Sea Cadets moved out in 2011, despite the sign on the door still saying they meet on Mondays and Thursdays (new recruits always welcome). The building is now in the care of volunteers who hire out the space as much as possible (rehearsals, theatre, record fairs, whatever), and also open up for a few hours maybe every couple of weeks while attempting to sell tea and cake to visitors. But the upkeep's expensive, the lead volunteer's nervous for the future and now for some reason the Navy want their anti-aircraft back. There's even a planning notice in the porch for "Listed building consent for internals work to remove two historic military guns and reinstatement of floor", so if you want to see Kilburn's jawdropping nautical secret best come soon.
Open House:Not Saying (somewhere in northwest London) The Godawful One
I'm not going to confirm which venue this is because that'll allow me to slag off my visit more freely. I turned up in good time to enjoy a walk-up tour, initially uncertain where to enter because nobody had hung a green Open House banner or poster anywhere on the property. I risked the main door and enquired, receiving full-on banter from others present before the Open House steward finally made themselves known. "We have some others waiting," he said, "they're upstairs reading the posters, you can wait up there". I went up just as the others appeared to be leaving and found myself in a long white corridor outside the toilets. There were indeed posters so I read them and waited, and waited, occasionally getting the side-eye from visitors popping up to use the loo. "Surely someone'll come up and tell me when the tour starts," I thought.
Nobody came up so after half an hour of loitering I went back down and looked around - nothing. Eventually someone pointed towards the end of the car park where the tour was in full swing and had been, apparently, almost since I'd gone upstairs. "Oh I forgot you were here," said the steward before continuing a dull anecdote about trains. I thought I must have missed all the good stuff, but after a few minutes it became apparent the bloke didn't have any good stuff, just long rambling anecdotes. He reeled off a lengthy summary of a YouTube video, showed us a culvert behind the bins, praised German engineering and eventually led the mute party back inside the building. Here he offered us a business card and I was shocked to discover he was the managing director, not just some well-meaning volunteer wheeled in for the day. When he then said "I must show you the pictures upstairs" I winced and took the opportunity to slip away, and it wouldn't surprise me if the poor sods who followed him are still trapped up there.
I'll tell you about the other three venues later, also those I hope to visit today before the rain sets in. In the meantime I've started off this year's Open House album on Flickr although it's still early days yet.
