Tag: leadenhall building

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Concertgebouw Bruges + Amazings Lego

Hartelijk Bedankt

Johan Creytens, the owner of Hotel Heritage, one of the city’s most prestigious addresses, recommends, “It’s always worth checking the cultural calendar for concerts at the Concertgebouw.” And it’s always worth walking the Concertgebouw Circuit. This is a route up ramps inside the building, taking in visual art and sound installations, before climaxing on the roof terrace.

It’s a breath of modernity amidst medieval monuments under the unrelenting regard of the winter sun. On the edge of the historic centre en route to the railway station, Concertgebouw provides an invigorating visitor experience. Ghent architect duo Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem won the design competition in 1999 and just three years later the first performance was held in the 1,289 seater concert hall. Paul says, “We definitely didn’t want to build a plush building so we went for concrete to create both acoustics and silence. Massive, solid, heavy. We have no problem with keeping concrete visible: it doesn’t have to be camouflaged.” The concert hall and arts centre in stats: the exterior is clad with 68,000 terracotta tiles and each year 3,000 artists take part in 165 performances in front of 140,000 audience members.

Hilde explains, “The Concertgebouw lives at the intersection of many worlds: the city, the square, nature. Each of its elevations may appear to be different but all of them work together as a whole and share a common feature of transparency. Through their large and small windows, the outside world can look in.” Paul adds, “Our main source of inspiration was historic Bruges. It was a challenge to create a reclining body that had to coexist alongside those venerable city towers, especially the mighty brick tower of the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk, or Church of Our Lady.”

Georges Rodenbach writes in his 1892 novel Bruges-la-Morte about the “misty labyrinth of the streets of Bruges”. The urban maze between the towers of Bruges is on full show from the roof terrace on top of Concertgebouw. Johan comments, “I was born here and sometimes still discover new buildings or alleys between the landmarks. A landmark isn’t a landmark unless it’s been recreated in Lego. And so Dirk Denoyelle, who runs a team of Lego artists in Flanders called Amazings, has designed a 185 piece Lego set of Concertgebouw. It joins the likes of Ashford Castle (County Mayo), Leadenhall Building (London) and Stadsmuseum (Ghent) in relishing this honour.

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Architects Architecture Luxury Restaurants

Fenchurch Restaurant + Sky Garden Walkie Talkie Building London

My Fair Lady

20 Fenchurch Street Walkie Talkie Building London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Marvellous. We’re off to London’s most controversial building. Or at least the most talked (pun) about. Greedily grasping more airspace than footprint thanks to a bulbous form, 20 Fenchurch Street initially had a few ‘teething issues’. Quibbles over compliance with planning faded (taking a pun) when the building’s reflection melted a Jaguar parked on the street below. Rafael Viñoly simply added architecture’s answer to shades: a brise soleil. Easy as. Jaguar drivers can now park peacefully on Eastcheap, and the Walkie Talkie, as Number 20 is known to all and sundry (slight pun), can bask in its own reflected glory. Lavender’s Blue give it the thumbs up (even slighter pun: check out the building’s outline, smile and move on).

Walkie Talkie Roof © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Views. They’re what make London dining so exhilarating. The Leadenhall Building and Duck + Waffle are the Walkie Talkie’s sky high competing neighbours. But canny operators like The Culpeper know that even a judiciously placed third floor roof terrace can enjoy a panorama between the cloudscrapers. At a recent reception we graced in Church House, the view couldn’t have been more different: the centuries old Dean’s Yard dwarfed by Westminster Abbey. “This is the most progressive city in the world,” proclaimed then Mayor-in-Waiting Sadiq Khan. “We are the most diverse; we even have Yorkshire men and women living in London!” The capital’s progressiveness is on 360 display looking out of Fenchurch, the restaurant on the 37th storey of the Walkie Talkie. A 21st century layering of geometric prowess is in full view – a new and bold topography. First class bankers replace the east London world of penny dreadfuls. Hodiernal* over Hogarthian. Not every restaurant needs a view. Brasserie Zédel, a palatial piece of Paris under Piccadilly, otherwise known as our Friday lunchtime office (gorging on goujonettes one week; devouring vol-au-vent aux fruits de mer the next), is 37 – yes, 37 – steps below ground.

Walkie Talkie Sky Garden © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Splendid. A five course vegetarian tasting menu 37 floors above ground followed by a private view(ing) of Pretty Woman is our most anticipated event since the release of Daphne Guinness’s majestic music album Optimist in White. The heiress who put the muse into music. Daphne was last seen strutting across Mount Street Gardens, clad (antlers hatted) head to (armadillo shoed) toe in Alexander McQueen, like a reindeer on hind legs. Working zoomorphic zaniness. Ilk of elk. En route to Scott’s naturally. Optimist in White. A Gesamtkunstwerk of an album. Fenchurch. A Gesamtkunstwerk of an evening. Entering the Sky Garden is like drinking the potion that made Alice in Wonderful shrink. It swallows up the top three storeys of the Walkie Talkie. Horizontal planes of galleries and terraces merge and emerge between the foliage of this hangar-like space. A silvery mauve twilight is killed off by a violently red sunset drenching the Sky Garden and the capital all around in a bloody glow.

Fenchurch Restaurant View © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Fenchurch Restaurant © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Fenchurch Private Dining Room © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Politics. As ever armed with a cacoethes* of the camera, it helps that our lawyer hostess is also a whizz behind the lens. This may be a business dinner, but forget the pyrotic* company poor Julia Roberts’ looker hooker tart with a heart has to endure in Pretty Woman. Our meritocratic table comprises law’s finest. The female contingent is out in force. Either it’s the lure of our company or the film choice. Then again the day started over pre House breakfast with a leading female politician: Roberta Blackman-Woods. Now Shadow Housing and Planning Minister, Professor Blackman-Woods first introduced us to Parliament at a University of Ulster Alumni reception. “There has never been such a concentration on planning before,” she observed, noting the move towards an American style zonal system. But right now our heads in the clouds (we’re having lots of pun) as YBC (Young British Chef) Zac Whittle’s vegetarian tasting menu arrives. And yes, the last courselet is deconstructed banoffee:

Fenchurch Restaurant Pea Soup © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Fenchurch Restaurant Banoffee © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

*Country Life words of the week

Fenchurch Restaurant Sunset © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architecture Luxury People Restaurants

The Leadenhall Building Bank + Heal’s Party Fitzrovia London

Lessons in Love 

If it’s good enough for Richard Rogers’ new office (Level 14) it’s good enough for the Lavender’s Blue wine and cheesegrater party (Level 42). Hurrah! With its head in the clouds, its body sandwiched between Lloyds and the Heron, and its feet formed of escalators between wonky pilotis, the good Lord’s wedge of glass pierces the horizon like an upturned diamond heel. Time to enjoy the high life up the The Leadenhall Building. Deep streets intertwine as fissures carved through the built form below. A turquoise tinged gold rimmed violet twilight consumes the sky all around. Later at Lavender’s Blue HQ, luxury caterer Purple Grape present vegetarian canapés to banish the blues forever: Griddled zucchini with artichoke and sun blush tomato; Kidderton Ash goats’ cheese on a ginger bread base ; Parmesan shortbread topped with gorgonzola and basil cress; and trio of naturally stained quail’s eggs with celery salt.

All served, obviously, on Lavender’s Blue and white plates. And a cheesegrater. Strategic Planning Manager Colin Wilson at the GLA is a fan of height. In a Lavender’s Blue exclusive he says, “We need to get away from objectification – our obsession, the media’s obsession, with tall buildings. Objectification misses the point of the city. The drama of the city is about totality. Appreciate the city for what it is. There are clusters of tall buildings but our capital is predominantly low rise. London isn’t Dubai. Its history and future are very different. Tall buildings aren’t the major issue; housing is.” Quite so. As always, Lavender’s Blue are on a high: uptown, upmarket, upscale, up our own.

Continuing to kick the heels up, Heal’s, for the well heeled, is the shop that likes to party. On three levels, as it turned out. To mark the finale of London Design Festival, in ascending order of floor, Prosecco, Aspall and Cointreau bars were installed while DJs serenaded guests. There was no time to lounge on Ligne Roset sofas or gossip across Kirsty Whyte designed Pinner tables with wooden spoon carving, ceramic painting, Sipsmith gin mixing and a vodka beetroot salmon gravadlax demonstration by Cambridge Cookery School (fortunately the latter required no audience participation save for the devouring bit) as distractions. Makers and Merchants’ chilli chocolate luscious lips stashed in the goody bag meant nobody left unkissed, if not quite level headed. No time for the flowers of Lavender’s Blue to wilt as Astrid Bray, London’s top hotelier, beckons in the direction of the single level Percy and Founders (the Fitzrovian restaurant with a chapel attached). Taking it to a whole new level, dinner awaits with the Park Lane ambassadress, the Green Park restaurateur and the Beverly Hills realtor – plus a certain Belgravia candle chandler who is a certain Gabhan O’Keeffe’s neighbour.