Author Archives: John Stewart

Louis Kahn again, I’m afraid folks – he is just such an interesting Modern architect. Unlike most of his contemporaries, much of his work is formal in its planning, often uses traditional materials and has a very obvious fascination with mass rather than transparency. He made no secret of his interest in the architecture ofContinue reading “Blog 28”

The loss of what has become known as “Sir John Soane’s Bank of England” has taken on almost mystical qualities amongst British architects. Nicholas Pevsner’s pronouncement (after the bank had already been rebuilt) that the demolitions constituted “the greatest architectural crime, in the City of London of the twentieth century” has stuck, and the architectContinue reading “Blog 27”

Continuing the Arts and Crafts theme, I came across this extraordinary house while researching my book on Scottish architect James Miller. ‘Kildonan House’ was commissioned by 21-year-old London-based Scot, David Euan Wallace in 1913, following his marriage to Edina Sackville. A few years earlier he had inherited around £2m pounds and the 15,000-acre Kildonan Estate,Continue reading “Blog 26”

If you’ve been envying Carey Mulligan her restrained and yet also rather sumptuous house on ‘The Dig’ then you might like to know that it’s actually ‘Norney Grange’ in Surrey of 1897 by the English Arts and Crafts architect, Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941). Despite its rather unusual entrance with the arched circular window whichContinue reading “Blog 25”

This is another of those buildings that you won’t have come across on your architecture course. There are numerous reasons for this, the main one being that it is categorised as ‘Fascist Architecture’ – which is true – although it still manages to function quite successfully as Naples central post office, despite the tag. ItContinue reading “Blog 24”

I was watching the rather strangely titled “The Architecture the Railways Built” the other night as it included both James Miller’s brilliant Wemyss Bay Station (see Blog 16) and the new Blackfriars Station in London, which was delivered by Jacobs architecture and engineering team, and it reminded me of one of my other favourite stations.Continue reading “Blog 23”

Non-architect friends occasionally ask me who my favourite architect is – a question I find impossible to answer – but when it comes to garden designers, for me, that’s an easy one – Luciano Giubbilei. Growing up in Siena (and fortunately avoiding the career in banking that he once appeared destined for) the Renaissance gardensContinue reading “Blog 22”

Continuing my transatlantic theme – one of the advantages of working for a company who were headquartered in Los Angeles (to make up for the 11 hour flight, 2 hours in immigration and 8 hour time difference) was the opportunity to visit the city’s buildings. I know it’s fashionable to be ‘fascinated’ by LA butContinue reading “Blog 21”

There are some buildings that are so famous that you think you know them well before you visit them. Several years ago, I found myself in Fort Worth with half a day free before a flight and grabbed the chance to visit Louis Kahn’s Kimble Art Museum. To the astonishment of my US colleagues, IContinue reading “Blog 20”

If you happen to be tramping across Villinki Island – one of the hundreds of islands in the archipelago around Helsinki (what a lovely thought in these days of no travel), you would soon come across a very modest, single-storey, timber-clad building, sitting amongst the birch trees, above the rocks, on the edge of theContinue reading “Blog 19”