In the past few years, I’ve spent a bit of time exploring the different expressions of Art Nouveau art and architecture in cities across Europe—I’ve been fascinated by the way in which an artistic movement arose in so many places, each with its own localized taste and feel.
I spent a pleasant day last spring in London, seeking out buildings showing off elements of Art Nouveau style. Ironically, a day may have been enough for London, where the turn-of-the-last-century movement never really became a big influence on architecture as it did under different names in Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, Munich, Vienna and Riga.
I say ironically, because the entire Art Nouveau movement owes a great deal of heritage to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement in England, sharing ideas about free and flowing forms, use of shapes from nature and folklore. But in that era, British buildings followed other paths, even while placing Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts objects within.
For some excellent examples of public ‘within,’ I started at a famous spot: Harrods in the Brompton Road and its incredible Food Hall (of which more another day). Walls, pillars and ceilings are rich in tile and plaster work, and many of the original metal fittings are in place as well. Today’s title photo was taken at the entrance to the Dining Hall.
Caxton Hall is not truly an Art Nouveau building, although it has many Art Nouveau decorative elements in its facade. It also has quite a history as the venue for meetings of diverse groups of socialists, rightists, pacifists, suffragettes and more; during World War II it was the location of Churchill’s press conferences. It also housed a Register Office that performed weddings for Anthony Eden, Elizabeth Taylor, Roger Moore, Joan Collins, Peter Sellers, Yehudi Menuhin and Ringo Starr, among others.
Nearby is St Ermin’s Hotel, another building with a history as interesting as its design. Built around 1890 as a ‘mansion block’ of luxury serviced apartments, it was converted to a hotel in 1899. From the 1930s and beyond, it was a favored meeting place of British intelligence services, and the Special Operations Executive was formed there.
It’s also where Burgess and MacLean, Kim Philby and the rest of the Cambridge Five spy ring met their Russian handlers. Not at the same time, of course—although Philby, as a senior officer of MI6, would have been at both sorts of meetings.
Just behind the entrance, above, is one of the most spectacular lobbies I’ve ever seen.
A short walk through St James Park took me to the Queen Alexandra Memorial, an Art Nouveau work by Sir Alfred Gilbert set in a Gothic tableau. Alexandra was the wife of Edward VII, and originally from Denmark. Gilbert explained the figures: “‘Love Enthroned,’ supported by Faith and Hope, on either side, and Love is directing a Boy sent out across the ‘River of Life,’ which springs from beneath Her Throne—symbolizing Queen Alexandra’s charity to Children, also the water typifies Her advent to Great Britain from across the water.”
The complicated but effective work earned Gilbert his knighthood. It was dedicated in 1932 by her son George V, along with a performance of Queen Alexandra’s Memorial Ode, written for the occasion by Edward Elgar, and with lyrics by John Masefield, the Poet Laureate.
Random touches spotted while walking to my next destination…
And the next destination: Wong Kei, the UK’s largest Chinese restaurant, and once famed as “the rudest restaurant in London,” whose owner and staff were said to yell at customers and occasionally threaten them with knife and fork over insufficient tips. It’s still operating, but its current owners say the rude days are over. The day I was there, it was too busy for me to have a try at it.
The building wasn’t originally a restaurant; it was built for Willy Clarkson, a well-known theatrical wig-maker and costumer and still has a clock over the entrance advertising it as home to a ‘Costumer and Perruquier.’ Clarkson’s friend, Sarah Bernhardt, laid the foundation stone.
Further east, just across from the Blackfriars bridge and rail station, is a curiously tall and wedge-shaped building housing The Blackfriar, a pub. The original 1875 building was squeezed onto a sliver of land left by a street construction project, and was remodeled with Art Nouveau motifs in 1905. It was saved from demolition in the 1960s by a campaign led by the poet Sir John Betjeman, who played a similar role in saving St Pancras Station.
It takes its name from the Dominicans—the Black Friars—who had a monastery nearby in the 13th century.
Despite the wonderfully-lettered sign, The Blackfriar today is actually owned by Nicholson’s, a chain of 78 pubs across the UK, many of them historic survivors.
It’s worth a peek past the doors; the interior, although not 1905 original, carries the spirit and the style well.
Turning back west a bit, I managed to find my way down a series of small streets to Bolton House, which houses a number of shops and an Italian restaurant in its lower floors. It’s the tilework that captures the eye, along with the arcaded windows at the second level. The rather incongruous floors at the top were added in 1984; I guess that’s better than losing the whole building!
My last stop of the day was at the Bishopsgate Institute, built in 1895 near Liverpool Street Station. It houses archives, libraries, meeting rooms and cultural events. It was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, one of few British architects to work seriously in Art Nouveau styles as well as others.
The Bishopsgate Institute building shows plenty of signs of that eclecticism, with copious Art Nouveau decorations set on Gothic forms, but with modernist frills at the top of its pseudo-Gothic towers.
All in all, a pleasant—if by the end hot and exhausting—day in London!
