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Courtenay Square Kennington London + Adshead + Ramsey + Prince Charles

The City Four Square

Georgian House Kennington © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Kennington has some of the best Georgian architecture in London. And some of the best neo Georgian. Take the Duchy of Cornwall’s estate in Kennington. In 1911, architect Stanley Adshead was commissioned to design this residential scheme. He partnered up with fellow architect Stanley Ramsey.

Georgian House Cleaver Square Kennington © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Prince Charles is a fan of his family’s commission: “Courtenay Square – a subtle reinterpretation of a Regency square, carried out in a ‘progressive spirit’ to use King George V’s own description. The architects Adshead + Ramsey were renowned pioneers of ‘planning’ in this country. They created a civilised architecture employing the simplest of means. The houses in Courtenay Square of around 1914 are not of the finest materials, nor richly decorated, nor on a grand scale. The Square works because of its proportions and straightforward detailing.”

Georgian Pediment Kennington London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Georgian House Cleaver Square Kennington London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Georgian House Facade Cleaver Square Kennington © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Entrance Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

200 Kennington Road Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Quadrant Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Kennington Road Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Houses Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Trees Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Terrace Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Crescent Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Porches Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Park Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Courtenay Square Rear Elevations Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

A pair of three storey red brick apartment blocks mark the entrance to the estate off Kennington Road. Each has a concave quadrant angle gracefully gesturing towards the two storey yellow stock brick terraced houses beyond. The apartment blocks are more flamboyant than the understated terraces, with an ensemble of Roman cement dressings. Prince of Wales’ feathers feature in the capitals of the apartment block pedimented porches and the mid terrace attic pediments. Each terraced house is treated to a delicate timber trellis porch topped by a swept lead hood. A Greek key patterned Roman cement first floor cill band wraps around the terraces.

Courtenay Square Pediment Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Architectural historian Andrew Saint observed in his 2018 European Commission Lecture, “The persistence of classicism continued throughout the 20th century. In 1900 it was there and is still going today.” Studying Courtenay Square it’s as if Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts never happened. Adshead + Ramsey didn’t rest on their Grecian laurels or stick to their neo Georgian guns though. In the 1930s they designed the Romanesque St Anselm’s Church in Kennington and the modernist block of flats John Scurr House in Limehouse.

Courtenay Square Window Duchy of Cornwall Kennington Estate © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Town Houses

Casa Amatller Barcelona + Josep Puig i Cadafalch

Sweet Dreams are Made of This

To describe Modernisme as Catalan Art Nouveau underrates its roots but it’s a fair starting point. The style originated in the 1870s when Barcelona was enjoying industrial prosperity and expanding beyond its medieval walls. This expansion, named Eixample, became the home of Modernisme. The relaxation of town planning and the influx of wealth combined with a resurgence of Catalan identity created the perfect climate for new commissions and in turn a new style. Modernisme is a manifestation of Catalan character in stone. And brick. And trencadís (broken ceramic tiles). In homage to the region’s history, Gothic, Moorish and medieval styles were fused with naturalistic motifs of Art Nouveau. Catalan architects superimposed their local customs and beliefs on traditional architecture and made it something new. The epoch ended in 1911.

Who better than Colm Tóibín to capture the spirit of the moment, “The style is known as Modernisme, and it was taken up by Catalan architects at the end of the 19th century as a national style from a number of sources, Art Nouveau and William Morris’ Arts and Crafts movement being among them. In 1903, just two years before the Palau de Música was begun, the leading Barcelona architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch wrote, ‘the most important thing we have done is that we have made a modern art, taking our traditional arts as a basis, adorning it with new material, solving contemporary problems with a national spirit.’”

Casa Amatller is a prime example of Eixample Modernisme. Its crazy ziggurat gable and spiky dingdong parapet sew a rich Dutch pattern into the fabric. The fabric of the rich, stitch upon stitch. Casa Amatller is one of three attached mansions, each a wildly varying rebuilding of an existing structure, together known as “Mansana de la Discòrdia” or “block of discord”. Chocolatier Antoni Amattler Costa commissioned Josep Puig i Cadafalch to go for it. Big time. An oriel as big as a planet. It was one of the first houses in Barcelona to have electricity, no less. Modern without the isme too. All that, he did with great aplomb. Almost 120 years after completion, Casa Amattler still has the wow factor. Madness or genius? Chisel or pencil? Fantasy or reality?

Apropos to the source of the dosh, Casa Amatller could easily be a stage set for Hansel + Gretel on speed. Maybe a bit of Rapunzel on acid thrown in for good measure too? Josep’s heroic adeptness at ecstatic playfulness is a trait Postmodernists would strive to emulate but rarely achieve a century later. Colm observes his eclecticism: “His style moved from the strident neo Gothic to the more gentle Germanic.” Peter Thornton, writing about Paris in Authentic Décor The Domestic Interior 1620 to 1920: “Most Art Nouveau was a good deal more sober than is generally supposed.” The same could not be written about its Catalan counterpart. No way, José.

Speaking at the European Commission in Smith Square, London, architectural historian Andrew Saint remarked, “Art Nouveau is really missing in the English context.” He cited Charles Harrison Townsend’s Horniman Museum in London as a rare example. “You can see Art Nouveau as a coalescence of vernacular traditions with an interest in urban politics. The poor old Glasgow School of Art shows that Scottish nationalism was an important force. But that energetic Pan Slavic or Catalan movement is missing in Britain.” There is no British equivalent of Casa Amatller.

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Villa Kennedy Hotel + JFK Restaurant Frankfurt

Er | The Autobiography of Things

So: 30 up, 20 to go. Cloudbotherers. In 2017 the price of new apartments in Frankfurt rose 25 percent. Hence the haste. It’s upwards and upwards. The Goldman Sachs rush. High cost high rise high flying high living it is then on the west bank of the River Main.

This, and other flotsam and jetsam, is what LVB* are discussing in Villa Kennedy’s JFK Restaurant. Over Cape Cod Dream mocktails: yoghurt | passion fruit | passion fruit juice | vanilla | lemon (€13).

And 50 Shades of Green herbivorous superfood: quinoa patty | avocado | Tahiti dressing | pumpkin seed pesto | courgette | young spinach salad (€26).

Chocolate thins to counterbalance all that healthiness. The best since last week’s petit fours served at Ballymore’s marketing suite – over a chinwag with Sir Oliver Letwin.

LVB are putting the gnomic into gastronomic.

There really is something swashbuckingly Rhode Island mansion about Villa Kennedy. It’s one of many turn-of-last-century landscrapers on the east bank of the River Main. Château façade; half timbered staircase hall; palazzo loggia: eclecticism on steroids.

Hansel and Gretel meets Norman Shaw was seemingly the whole rage back in the day. “Architecture is more than practicalities,” Dr Tim Brittain-Catlin reminded the audience at the final European Commission talk celebrating the European Year of Cultural Heritage.

Closer to the River Main is the 1896 Liebieghaus. A “prestigious villa” no less, announces a sign on the gatepost. Baron Heinrich von Liebieg’s former home is now an a museum. Said sign sums it up, “Manor house built in a mixture of styles: Southern German; Late Gothic; and Alpine Renaissance.” And for good measure a 1908 “Art Nouveau gallery wing with Baroque influences.”

Named after the Presidential visit of 1963, the very restored Villa Kennedy has been given the full blown Rocco Forte treatment with a little art deco help from designer Martin Brudnizki.

Hey ho. Jackie Kennedy was instrumental in launching the Irish Georgian Society. Ho hum. Now LVB have been appointed the social diarist for the London Chapter. JFK | JBK | IGS | LVB. Acronyms are so very FRA.

*A design based celebration of the good things in life

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Architecture

Lavender’s Blue + Frankfurt

Many Mansions

John Goodall, Country Life’s Architectural Editor, presented a talk on castle architecture, the second in the European Commission series of lectures curated by Dr Roderick O’Donnell and hosted by Cultural Attaché Jeremy O’Sullivan at Europe House, Smith Square, London. The series marks the European Year of Cultural Heritage. “The elevations of châteaux are often one third roof,” John commented. “The French were obsessed with roofs.” Pictured are houses, not castles, in Germany, not France. Nevertheless, John’s comments could still be applied. Their roofs have more slopes than Klosters, more gables than a Lucy Maud Montgomery novel. Monsieur Mansard would approve.