And so, finally, to the architecture. As I wrote in Part 1 of this post, the site is triangular, bounded by Monmouth St., Mercer St., and Shelton St. I think the term for this in Urbanist circles is a boundary block - think doughnut/bagel here.
At the time of the closure of Covent Garden wholesale market the Triangle belonged to the architectural ironmongers Comyn Ching (they had their showrooms in Shelton St.) and the gardens and yards at the centre of the block had been submerged in workshops, apparently including 3 working forges. It is an example of the way small scale manufacturing, often highly skilled, developed in the industrial cites of England; think of the workshops of the 'Little Masters' in areas like the Jewry Quarter of Birmingham, or of the cutlery makers in Sheffield.
Comyn Ching, a family firm, at some point decided to re-develop their property, and 1977 called in the 39 year old Terry Farrell. Farrell was then in partnership with Nicholas Grimshaw. As has been pointed out, Farrells work here represents a stylistic and methodological parting of the ways between the two men.
Work commenced in 1978 and continued until 1990. It soon came to be seen, rightly, as a paradigm of urban renewal. The 'shanty town' in the midst of the site was cleared away to create a semi-public open space - Ching Court. The twenty five properties that lined the perimeter of the site were very well restored and the three corner properties sold to a developer who had to work to Farrell's deign. The detailing is superb, particularly the wooden porches and the two entrances to Ching Court. The northern one is the more interesting in that it aligns with Tower Court across Monmouth St. The visitor passes through a dark entrance passage and emerges in a circular quasi-external space at the head of the site that changes the direction of travel, with steps take the visitor down to the level of the paved courtyard. It is all handled beautifully, quite stage managed, for instance that delicious glimpse you get of Ching Court from across Monmouth St. is just so London.
As you might expect from a piece of Post-Modern design there any number of references and quotes in the architecture. The porches, for instance, are a mixture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Art Deco. One of my favourite details is the hefty half-buried column on the corner of Shelton St & Mercer St. Farrell's work here seemed to chart the course for a more considered approach to Postmodern design than that in America, but it was not to be.
I do like some of Farrell's later work, but rarely, if ever, was it as good as this.
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