The faithful will have been following my recent trip to Donegal to see the Magnificent Seven Churches by Liam Mccormick (Summary post on the trip HERE)
Shortly after this trip I was on a short trip to the UK where I took a guided tour of The Homewood by Patrick Gwynne.
There’s stacks of information on the house online so I won’t duplicate it here, such as THIS POST (which includes more interior photos) and THIS POST which is a more architectural summary.
The tour was conducted by two exceptional guides; retired architects that gave a brilliant summary on the four points of modernism that can be seen at The Homewood, namely:
Five Points of Architecture (Text from Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier%27s_Five_Points_of_Architecture#Five_Points_of_Architecture)
Developed in the 1920s, Le Corbusier’s ‘Five Points of Modern Architecture’ (French: Cinq points de l’architecture moderne) are a set of architectural ideologies and classifications that are rationalized across five core components:[3]
Pilotis – a grid of slim reinforced concrete pylons that assume the structural weight of a building. They are the foundations for aesthetic agility, allowing for free ground floor circulation to prevent surface dampness, as well as enabling the garden to extend beneath the residence
Free design of the ground plan – commonly considered the focal point of the Five Points, with its constructional dictating new architectural frameworks. The absence of load-bearing partition walls affords greater flexibility in design and use of living spaces; the house is unrestrained in its internal use
Free design of the façade – separated exterior of the building is free from conventional structural restriction, allowing the façade to be unrestrained, lighter, more open
Horizontal window – ribboned windows run alongside the façade’s length, lighting rooms equally, while increasing sense of space and seclusion. As well as provide interior spaces with better light and view of the surroundings
Roof garden – flat roofs with garden terraces serve both harmonic and domestic utility, providing natural layers of insulation to the concrete roof and creating space.
You can see a plan of the house below:
Below therefore are a few photos from our trip:
We also paid a visit to the Serpentine Gallery, also designed by Patrick Gwynne. The original (also by Gwynne was demolished in 1990 – see below) and what was known as the Dell Restaurant (where I had a lovely lunch) was constructed in 1965.
You can read more on these projects HERE and HERE
The original demolished restaurant is shown below followed by a slideshow of photos from our trip:
Original image can be found at: https://architectuul.com/architecture/serpentine-restaurant
(Image links to this page)