Florin Court is an Art Deco residential building situated on the eastern side of Charterhouse Square in Smithfield, London, England
Built in 1936 by Guy Morgan and Partners, it features an
impressive curved façade, a roof garden and a basement swimming pool. It was
probably the earliest of the residential apartment blocks in the Clerkenwell
area. The walls have been built in beige bricks, specially made by Williamson
Cliff Ltd (Stamford, Lincolnshire) and placed over a steel frame.
Regalian Proprieties refurbished the building in the 1980s,
to designs by Hildebrand & Clicker architects, providing the actual
interior flats shape and facilities.
The building became the fictional residence of Agatha
Christie's Poirot, known as Whitehaven Mansions. In 2003, the building was
declared a Grade II Listed Building.
The Midland Hotel
The Midland Hotel is a Streamline Moderne building in Morecambe, Lancashire, England. It was built by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), in 1933, to the designs of architect Oliver Hill, with sculpture by Eric Gill. It is a Grade II listed building. The hotel has been restored by Urban Splash with architects Union North, Northwest Regional Development Agency and Lancaster City Council.
The hotel is designed in the Streamline Moderne style of Art
Deco. Oliver Hill designed a three-storey curving building, with a central
circular tower containing the entrance and a spiral staircase, and a circular
cafe at the north end. The front of the hotel is decorated with two Art Deco
seahorses, which can be viewed at close proximity from the hotel's rooftop
terrace.
The hotel stands on the seafront with the convex side facing
the sea, and the concave side facing the former Morecambe Promenade railway
station – in homage to the railway company whose showcase hotel this was. Hill
designed the hotel to complement the curve of the promenade, which allowed
guests to view spectacular panoramas of the North West coast.
High and Over
The century makers: 1929
Matthew Sturgis on one of Britain's first modernist buildings
Matthew Sturgis12:01AM BST 21 Jun 2003 / http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/3314399/The-century-makers-1929.html
Built on the chalk hillside overlooking Amersham, the
curiously named High and Over is among the first handful of modernist buildings
in Britain. It was designed - in 1929 - by the 28-year-old, New Zealand-born
architect Amyas Connell. He drew on the recent ground-breaking work of the
French architect, Le Corbusier, to create a novel variation on the English
country house.
The client was Professor Brian Ashmole, then Yates Professor
of Archaeology at the University of London, whom Connell had met three years
previously in Rome - when Ashmole was director of the British School there and
Connell was a Rome scholar.
Some critics have seen an influence of the Roman Baroque in
High and Over's bold Y-shaped plan, and central spiral staircase. Almost
everything else about the building was determinedly modern, from its cantilever
reinforced concrete construction, to its stark whitewashed and crisply
delineated horizontal windows. A very functional-looking modern water-tower was
sited just above the house, with a fives court attached to it. Even the garden
was originally laid out in a geometrical pattern.
Connell, however, for all his desire to experiment, was
sensitive to the possibilities of the site. The numerous windows and spacious
roof terrace took full account of the house's commanding position, providing
the maximum of light and the finest of views, while the long, banded lines of
the building were intended to echo the contours of the chalk hills above and
around the house.
Spread over three floors, with five bedrooms, a large
library, and a dining-room (connecting with the kitchen in one "arm"
of the Y) it was a spacious abode, and not a cheap one. The estimated cost was
£3,000.
Since its construction, the purity of the house has been
slightly compromised by a few alterations. The piers between the windows were
widened; during the 1970s some not very lovely houses were built in the
once-extensive grounds; the water-tower was demolished, and much of the garden
remodelled along less rigid lines. More recently, the house has been divided
into two separate, self-contained properties. It is a fate that has befallen
other - older and more conventional - country houses. And they make desirable
homes. One of them (admittedly the one possessing the freehold - and swimming
pool) was recently on the market for £750,000.
"The division certainly made good commercial
sense," says local estate agent, John Nash. "If the house were still
a single property, it would probably fetch only about £1 million. The two
halves would add up to rather more than that.'
Money matters
A bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label Scotch whisky costs 12s
6d; a Viyella nightie from Affleck & Brown, Manchester, cost 17s 11d; a jar
of Silver Shred marmalade is 7.5d; a bricklayer's labourer earns 54s 1d per
week; the country's 86 immigration officers earn between £200 and £300 each per
annum.
Key events
Wall Street Crash; Margaret Bondfield - as Minister of
Labour - becomes Britain's first female Cabinet minister in Ramsay MacDonald's
new administration; Al Capone's mobsters kill seven members of Bugsy Malone's
rival gang in the St Valentine's Day Massacre; the first 'Best Picture' Oscar
is awarded to Wings; the first Monaco Grand Prix is won by Britain's William
Grover-Williams in a Bugatti.
THE HOUSE OF A DREAM
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