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Architecture People

Bishop of London + Fulham Palace London

The Forgiveness of Things

“The Bishop of London lived at Fulham for almost 1,300 years,” explains the current Bishop, “but by 1973 times had changed and it was no longer appropriate or convenient for the Bishop to live in a Palace. The Church Commission initially let the site on a long lease to Hammersmith and Fulham Council. Today, Fulham Palace Trust manages the site.”

The Bishop adds, “I live in a more modest house close to St Paul’s Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of London. However, I watch the work of Fulham Palace Trust with interest and admiration as it restores the Palace and garden to reveal its long and fascinating history. The work to ensure that this beautiful historic site is accessible to Londoners and visitors from further afield is very important to me, as we all search for meaning and belong­­­ing in a rapidly changing world.”

The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullaly is the first female Bishop of London. She left her previous post as Chief Nursing Officer of England in 2004 to pursue full time ministry. Her take on this is: “I am often asked what it has been like to have had two careers, first in the National Health Service and now in the Church. I prefer to think that I have always had one vocation: to follow Jesus Christ, to know him and to make him known, always seeking to live with compassion in the service of others, whether as a nurse, a priest or a bishop.”

Bishop Sarah is also a Lord Spiritual in the House of Lords and a Member of the Privy Council. She concludes, “The Trust’s 2017 to 2019 restoration has transformed the iconic Tudor court buildings into a new museum, repaired the 15th century brickwork, reintroduced historic species of plants in the garden and opened up the site with new and improved paths.”

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Hotels Luxury People

The Gore Hotel Kensington London + Christian Dior

A Half Century | It is Cricket

What’s the story? A Royal Equerry. Raine Spencer’s best friend. An Al Fayad family friend. Two Lulu Guinness handbag hugging hoteliers. A pair of Cavani clad models. The couple who brought Shigeru Ban to Britain. What’s the collective noun for art dealers and architectural historians? A talent of…?  The Mayor’s right hand woman. A man of the cloth. And an engineer. New York, New Zealand, Long Beach, London and Coneywarren’s finest have congregated at The Gore’s 190 Bar for cocktails, canapés and craic. Frivolity between the solemnity of Bach’s Passion of St John (St Paul’s Cathedral) and Handel’s Messiah (Royal Albert Hall). Everyone’s dressed up with somewhere to go: the V+A’s Christian Dior show. Our lips are as sealed as a Man Ray painting. Except to say, turning 50 is good innings.

Categories
Architecture Luxury Restaurants

Victoria House + The Bloomsbury Ballroom London

Ballistics

Bloomsbury Ballroom Victoria House © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Like Selfridges, that other great Beaux Arts behemoth cathedral to commerce, Victoria House confidently swallows up a whole urban block. An architectural display of imperialism with balls of stone commanding attention along one full sweep of Bloomsbury Square, the (breathe in) di style in antis Ionic Erechtheion portico (breathe out) soars heavenward on giant columns through the upper floors to a pediment boxed in by the mother of all parapets below a monster green slate triple mansard. All this is so emphatic. Incidentally it was used as a setting for the television series Mr Selfridge. Again incidentally it is faced with Portland stone from the same quarry as St Paul’s Cathedral. Back in the day, or year, 1926 to be exact, the architect Charles William Long’s brief was to “add to the dignity and beauty of the metropolis”. Something we’re not averse to doing either.

Amazingly the interiors remain virtually intact. Entrance lobbies on all four sides are faced in Subiaco marble, decorated Greek style, dressed up to the nines with brass detailing and capped by coffered ceilings. Three halls with sprung floors for dancing are slotted between the panelled offices. The south hall is now called The Bloomsbury Ballroom. It’s a picture of a fabulous age, a place for roarers and flappers. Is that Alabama Beggs shimmying across the shadows? Seamus Heaney believed, “If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.” Conversely we reckon if architecture and the arts do anything, they can fortify your social life, your waywardness. Smash the carapace. Have a ball. And so, an invitation to a glittering world of Divine Comedy Decadence, an exploration of the darker side of paradise, utopia displacing dystopia, delving into a phantasmagoria, transcending into a transmogrification, proves irresistible.

We’re a little late arriving. Thank goodness for 3am licences. It’s been a long day starting with breakfast at The Travellers. Jennifer’s Diary eat your heart out. We’ve schlepped across London from an exclusive top secret party. It was a very private view for The Beautiful People of a three bedroom apartment at 155 Sloane Street curated by Wallpaper* editors for the next issue. Co-hosts were Wallpaper* Editor-in-Chief Tony Chambers and Cadogan Chief Exec Hugh Seaborn. Chatham House? What’s that? Is it National Trust? Anyway, it’s terribly important don’t you think to use colour for branding. Asprey Purple. Crown Cream. Linley Green. Tiffany Blue. Veuve Clicquot Yellow. Barry White. Hotel Chocolat Black. Acqua di Parma Gold. Bloomsbury Ballroom Black and Gold. Classy. The psychedelic Long Bar off the ballroom employs the full spectrum with lampshades of every shade in the colour wheel. Lights, cameras, lots of action: this starring Space Works world’s a candelabra-filled stage. Fuelled by Lotus Events canapés, ballroom dancers from City Academy take to the floor, tripping the polychromatic light fantastic. The room is on fire.

Turner Prize nominee Tris Vonna-Michell “creates circuitous, multi-layered narratives, characterised by fragments of information, detours and repetitions, designed to confuse and enlighten in equal measure.” The same could be said for the bars off the ballroom. The 32 metre Long Bar lives up to its name. So does the Crush Bar: we’re shoulder to shoulder with the air kissing crowd. “Things are always unnoticed until they’re noticed,” declared Tesco Chairman Sir Richard Broadbent, hell bent on stating something or other of consequence. “A monument to our creativity and a brilliant day out,” assertively commented Tony Blair on the Millennium Dome in the days before irony. Returning to paraphraseology we enthusiastically say The Bloomsbury Ballroom is a noticeable monument to our creativity and a brilliant night out. A dignified and beautiful ballroom of one’s own.

The Bloomsbury Ballroom candles © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley