Here is the magnificent Trellick Tower in West London.
Trellick Tower from the Golbourne Road, London W10. Sketched 28 November 2023 in Sketchbook 13
This tower is 271 flats, 31 stories, completed in 1972 to the design of Ernő Goldfinger (note 1). It is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, near the Grand Union Canal and the A40 trunk road out of London. It is Grade II* listed (note 2)
After sketching, I was really cold. I found warmth and excellent food in the Sicilian Café “Panella” shown on the map above, recommended!
Panella – Golborne RoadSketching locationA bright and cold daythe base of the Trellick TowerSketchbook spread: Trellick Tower
I have previously sketched the Balfron Tower in East London, also designed by Ernő Goldfinger.
I was intrigued by this juxtaposition of two very different buildings, each radical in its own way. The top corners are just a few feet from each other.
A corner of Trinity College Dublin: Museum Building on the left, Library on the right with “Sphere with Sphere” in front. October 22nd 2023, in Sketchbook 13
The building on the left is called the Museum Building. It houses the Geography department, amongst others. I know this because there was a notice visible in one of its windows asking:
“Without Geography, where are you?”
This building was finished in 1852. According to the website “makingvictoriandublin.com” the style is called “Ruskinian Gothic”. The design is by Cork architects Deane, Son and Woodward, influenced by the philosophies of the English writer, artist and art critic John Ruskin, says the Making Victorian Dublin site.
Central to the design was a radical endorsement of the creative power of human happiness…the architects encouraged the freedom of their workmen [sic] in designing and executing the building’s external and internal carvings.
The external and internal carvings are very complex combinations of leaves and flowers. A notice inside the building tells us that all the building’s carvings are by brothers John and James O’Shea of O’Shea and Whelan and that they gathered wild flowers and animals (amazingly) to use as models.
Even as the Museum Building was being built the Dublin press recognised it as the first experiment in British and Ireland of Ruskin’s radical views – a clear demonstration of the ‘the desireableness of employing the minds of the workmen’.
This experiment’, wrote the reviewer in the Dublin Express, ‘proves the general correctness of [Ruskin’s] views, and, moreover, has resulted far better than even the most sanguine advocates of this system had allowed themselves to expect.’
The whole building is influenced by Venetian designs observed by John Ruskin.
The inside of the building is spectacular. As well as the soaring architecture and the fascinating patterns and arches, there are also two skeletons of elks, some dinosaur footprints, and a model of a floating crane boat. You could spend hours there sketching.
Museum Building, Trinity College Dublin, interior, 22 October 2023.
The building on the right of my drawing is a library, opened in 1967. It is in the radical style of that period: the Brutalist style. The building’s clean lines and functional appearance are characteristic of this style. The architect was Paul Koralek of ABK architects.
The library in 1967: Berkeley Library, Trinity College, Dublin: the entrance front and raised forecourt. Photo credit: Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections. [RIBA51354] Used with permission.
In 2017 the College ran a celebration of the library after 50 years. Their website includes pictures of the interior and furnishings. https://www.tcd.ie/library/berkeley
Two buildings talking to each other“Sphere with Sphere”
The spherical object in my drawing is a sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro called “Sphere with Sphere 1982/3” according to an inscription on the pavement.
I sketched for about an hour and a half. During that time waves of people crossed the square. There were a remarkable number of tourists, some with tour guides, moving in groups.
At one point, a solitary woman approached me and asked to see the picture. She smiled and said something in her own language which sounded like a compliment. So I said thank you, and smiled back. She told me that she didn’t speak English, and held up four fingers, counting, to explain she had only been here for four days. She was from Ukraine, she said. Her hands modelled an aeroplane taking off and landing. A wide uplifted arm gesture took in the autumn sun, the buildings and the people, expressing gladness to be here. She pointed at my drawing, and nodded again, making what was evidently a positive comment and a connection. Then she said goodbye and I said goodbye.
Sketching locationSketchbook 13
Colours used:
Buff titanium (all brickwork and concrete)
Mars Yellow (brickwork, concrete, sphere
Ultramarine Blue plus Lavender (sky)
Ultramarine Blue plus Burnt Umber (all greys)
Serpentine Genuine (trees)
a small bit of Cobalt Teal Blue and Fired Gold Ochre in the background
All Daniel Smith watercolours except the Ultramarine Blue which is Horadam watercolour.
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Here is Liverpool Street Station, main entrance, sketched today from outside the “Railway Tavern”.
Liverpool Street Station, 25th June 2023, 1pm. 8″ x 10″ in sketchbook 13.
The humanoid figure on the plinth is Morph, part of a temporary art trail.
The area in front of the main entrance is like an art installation in itself, a collector’s assembly of street furniture: two different types of bollards, long ribbons of fencing, several species of street lamps, and that enormous CCTV stand which is just behind Morph. It’s surprising that people can find their way into the station in amongst the obstacles. I haven’t drawn them all.
Here’s work in progress on the sketch:
PencilPenThe viewColour
This section of Liverpool Street Station was built in 1875 as the new London terminus of the Great Eastern Railway. The building on the right of my drawing is the edge of the former Great Eastern Hotel (1884), now the Andaz London Liverpool Street. The pink building in the background is an office block on Bishopsgate.
Map: (c) OpenStreetMap ContributorsSketch map
I’ve sketched in this area before. This post contains more information about the history of Liverpool Street:
Here are the magnificent 19th Century arches of Liverpool Street Station, seen from Exchange Square. Liverpool Street Station opened in 18751 Now the question is: what curve is that arch? I thought it might be a CYCLOID. A cycloid is the shape made by a dot on the edge of a rolling wheel. I made…
Here is the University of Oxford Nuclear Physics building, seen from the Banbury Road.
The Nuclear Physics building, now the Denys Wilkinson building, University of Oxford. Sketched 27 May 2023, in Sketchbook 13
The building was renamed the “Denys Wilkinson Building” in 2002. It was built in 1967 to the designs of architect Philip Dowson of Arup. The fan-shaped structure originally housed a Van der Graff particle accelerator, now dismantled. [https://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1960/denyswilkinson.html]
Professor Wilkinson (1922-2016) was the Head of the Nuclear Physics Department from 1962-1976.
The building on the left is the “Thom Building” which houses the Engineering Department. This building had a marvellous “paternoster” lift in the 1970s. (Note 1). This is a lift with single compartments, which operates in a continuous loop, like rosary beads, hence the name. You simply stepped into one of the slowly moving compartments and were carried up or down.
Here is work in progress on the drawing:
The fan-shaped structure is a rare example of brutalism in Oxford. St Catherine’s College is another example.
Ought we to treat the Denys Wilkinson building and St. Catherine’s College as a celebrated chapter in Oxford’s aesthetic history, or as evidence of a period better forgotten?
Here is an amazing sight: the hanging bridge over London Wall.
London Wall, hanging bridge. 24 May 2023, about 1pm, 7″ x 10″ in Sketchbook 13
The large building in the centre of the picture is City Tower, 40 London Wall. In front of it is a demolition site where City Place House used to be. The bridge used to connect to City Place House. Now this building has gone, the bridge hangs in space.
In my previous drawing I sketched while listening to the guitar music of Hidè Takemoto. For this drawing, the acoustic accompaniment was mostly percussion. The building site was active. Spasmodic grinding and crashing signalled the removal of concrete. Metallic hammering came from scaffolding under construction.
The big red grid on the right of my picture was hauled upwards and out of sight before I finished drawing it. It was going to be part of a second crane. It arrived on a large lorry which would also have been in the picture if it had stayed still long enough. Immediately it arrived, workers secured chains to the red structure and it was manoeuvred off the lorry. Hardly anyone on the pavement paid any attention to all this thrilling activity across the road. One person, the slim figure to the right of my picture, stopped and took a selfie.
GoogleMaps allows us to travel not only in space but also in time. Here are some screengrabs so you can see the City Place House (on the right) which has now disappeared.
As you see, City Tower used to be obscured by City Place House. It will be obscured again when the next huge building goes up.
The bridge in the pictures above is the “new bridge”. It was installed as part of the London Wall Place development (off the picture to the left). The “old bridge” took a slightly different route. Again, GoogleMaps provides an image. Notice the previous lampposts, with the flying saucer lights.
The “old bridge” across London Wall, July 2008. City Place House, on the right, is the building which is now being demolished.
I sketched City Place House before it was demolished. This post (click below) gives information about the old building which has been demolished and the new building which is planned.
An email from an ever-vigilant neighbour alerted me to the Planning Application for City Place House and the adjacent tower, City Tower. This application is currently under consideration. I hastened to go and have a look at the buildings, before they get swathed in white plastic. City Tower has been there since 1967. It is…
City Tower is not being demolished. This is of interest because its sister building Bastion House, constructed at the same time, is deemed “unsafe” by the City of London, and is scheduled for demolition to make way for the “London Wall West” project. It’s curious that City Tower is evidently not “unsafe” and is standing proud, in use into the future.
Map of the area where I sketchedCity House and Bastion tower, aligned with the street pattern.
I made a special tool to draw the many windows on City Tower.
City Tower has 35 verticals. I made a special comb from cocktail sticks to scrape the paint into the required number of vertical lines.
The colours are:
Ultramarine Blue and Lavender for the sky.
All the greys are Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber
The bridge is Fired Gold Ochre, with some Transparent Pyrrol Orange
The red is Transparent Pyrrol Orange
Mars Yellow is on the distant building and the scaffolding plastic
Sketching site: St Alphege Church in the background
I put down the first wash on site and finished the picture at my desk.
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Here is St Giles’ Church, Cripplegate, seen from the public walkway at Wallside. The church is surrounded by the Barbican Estate. Cromwell Tower is in the background. The City of London School for Girls is the lower building, centre and left. Through the gap between the church and the school, you can just glimpse the Barbican Centre.
The magnolia was in bloom!
St Giles from Wallside, Barbican, 1 April 2023 12″ x 9″ [Commission]
I painted this as a commission, for some clients who wanted this particular view. A special request for this commission was that I showed two ducks. These are small, but they are there!
Ducks on the lake.
The white shapes on the lakeside wall are gravestones.
Old London Wall is on the left: part stone, part brick. This is the old Roman wall round the City of London.
Thank you to my clients for this commission and for their permission to post the picture here online. It was a real pleasure to do.
The colours I used are:
For the sky: a pale yellow wash of permanent yellow deep, followed by a grey made from ultramarine blue and burnt umber, with some ultramarine blue for the blue bits.
For the church: the stone is a pale yellow wash of permanent yellow deep, then a dilute buff titanium wash. I put salt on it to get some texture. Then the dark areas are a grey made from ultramarine blue and burnt umber.
The top part of the church, St Giles Terrace and all the reddish/purple brickwork is a combination of perylene maroon, burnt umber, fired gold ochre, and a bit of ultramarine blue for the dark areas.
The lake, which really is that green colour, is ultramarine blue, plus some serpentine genuine which makes it granulate.
All concrete is the same mix of burnt umber and ultramarine blue with some mars yellow.
Old London wall is the pale yellow wash of permanent yellow deep, with a second wash of lunar blue with burnt umber. Lunar blue is highly granulating, which gives a wonderful stone effect. The bricks are fired gold ochre.
All green plants are green gold, and there’s also some green gold on the stonework of the church, to show the lichen.
The weathervane is Liquitex gold ink, applied with a fine brush.
The line drawing is done with a Lamy Safari fountain pen, using De Atramentis Black ink, which is waterproof.
The white parts of the picture, for example the lines between the bricks on Old London Wall, (and the ducks) are done using a resist. This is a rubbery substance, applied before putting on any paint. The resist I use is called Pebeo Drawing Gum. I put it on using a dip pen to get the fine lines. After the paint is dry, I rub it off, and the parts where it was show up white. There are also a few tiny dots of white gouache paint on the magnolia tree.
The paper is Arches Aquarelle 300gsm 12″ x 9″ in a block.
Work in progress. Arches Aquarelle block, Lamy Safari pen. The yellow is masking tape, which I put round to make the picture easier to handle and to give a crisp edge to the work. The people on St Giles Terrace were practising Tai Chi. It was very relaxing to watch them. See the green lichen on the concrete. And the magnolia.
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I sketched this from the outside tables at 88 Wood Street. A small coffee shop run by Dartbrooke Coffee has opened in this office block. The coffee was superb, the welcome warm, and they had a selection of food. Also they had tables both indoors and out. Here’s the view from an outdoor table overlooking London Wall.
Bastion House EC2 from 88 Wood Street, 6th September 2022 in Sketchbook 12
I liked all the angles.
That’s rain you see in the sky. I had to pack up quickly as the rain came down.
Rain on the painting!
This picture took 1hour 10 minutes up to the point in the photo above when it started raining. Then another 20 minutes at my desk to finish off.
Here’s a map. The building on the left of my drawing is 200 Aldersgate, a huge office block.
Map showing where I was sketching and my viewpoint.
Bastion House is the monolith in the centre of the picture, with the Barbican Highwalks below leading to the Museum of London.
Bastion House, the Highwalks, and the Museum of London are all under threat of demolition by the City of London and replacement with three huge office blocks, overshadowing the Barbican. All the bridges will be removed, and all the highwalks in this area. This is not a good idea, in my view, and I support the residents’ call to the City to stop and think. Do we need yet more huge office blocks…really? Can we not refurbish the existing buildings, as has happened successfully to nearby blocks?
Earlier this month, I made a quick sketch of Bastion House, from London Wall. Here’s a map: The architect was Philip Powell of Powell and Moya. The building…
Bastion House aka 140 London Wall is a huge modernist monolith, reminiscent of the monolith in “2001 – A Space Odyssey”. I couldn’t find a site to draw…
I hastened to draw the magnificent Bastion House, on London Wall. It is due for demolition. In the foreground you see the balcony and privacy screen of the…
Here is the magnificent Marine Court, a residential building on the coast at St Leonards in Sussex. It was built in the 1930s, although it looks later. It was hugely controversial at the time, as you can imagine. The design emulates that of an ocean liner, the Queen Mary. Wikipedia tells me that the building originally had a rooftop bar, which must have been fun.
Marine Court, St Leonards, in sketchbook 12
I was particularly taken by the design right at the top. From this angle, it looks like waves. This building is on the sea front, the sea is behind me and to the left.
The top of the building looks like waves. I had to number the floors to keep track of where I was…!
It is an Art Deco building, constructed between 1936 and 1938. It was requisitioned for military use in the 1939-45 conflict, and bombed in September 1942. The bomb damage was repaired after the war. It was listed Grade II in 1999.
The original concept was upmarket serviced apartments:
Design for total living environment Marine Court was designed to provide “an environment for total living” – a self-contained lifestyle within the complex, but not necessarily within each apartment. Modest sized flats originally had tiny kitchens – it was assumed that most of the inhabitants would dine in the main restaurant at the eastern end of the building, or avail themselves of room service. There were shops, parking, roof sun decks and recreational facilities (including a dance floor and bar) – and in-house staff to do the chores (there are still some call buttons to summons the now-defunct service).
Hastings Borough Council Marine Court, St Leonards-on-Sea Conservation, Management Plan [1]
It was privately developed. But the construction costs went over budget and sales of flats were slow. The owners, South Coast (Hastings and St. Leonards) Properties Company, went bust. After being occupied by the military, the building passed into the hands of Hastings Borough Council. By 2007, the building was becoming old, and evidently the repairs programme was not coping with the deterioration of the building. Hastings Borough Council proposed an plan [1]. This lists the problems in some detail, including such serious items as:
Condition of building service equipment The condition of building services and utility equipment [gas boilers / water / electricity / air /lifts / other] are the cause of some shared concern amongst the building’s managing agents and the residential leaseholders
Hastings Borough Council Marine Court, St Leonards-on-Sea Conservation, Management Plan [1]
Evidently this plan by Hastings Borough Council did not work out well, because by 2010 the leaseholders had acquired the freehold and formed their own company: “Marine Court (St Leonards On Sea) Freeholders Limited”.
The “Hastings Independent” reported on January 25th 2019: “The Grade II listing in 1999 made the costs of upkeep that much higher. However, the freehold was bought by the residents through a company, Marine Court (St Leonards on Sea) Freeholders Limited in 2010, and the prestige of the address, not to mention the glorious sea views from its upper windows, has ensured that most of the flat owners have been affluent enough, or can charge sufficient rent to sub-tenants, to meet the restoration bills as they are incurred.” The article goes on to describe problems in letting the retail shops which are underneath the canopy. They say: “Current controversies centre on the cost of works to upgrade a series of shared toilets at the rear of the premises with enhanced fire precaution measures including smoke alarms. The shops, which don’t need to provide toilet facilities for their customers, make sparing use of them; on the other hand, they are essential to the bars and restaurants, which do. Either way the projected cost of almost £100,000, charged in advance on the basis of estimates, is widely regarded as completely out of proportion to what is necessary or reasonable. …Some [business owners] are said to be taking legal advice on how to challenge the extent of the charges being levied. Others have simply left. There are several shopfronts now boarded up, which is having an adverse effect not just on general morale, but on the footfall which most of those who remain depend upon. “
That was in 2019. When I walked past in 2022, the majority of the shopfronts were boarded up, which is a great pity, as it is a good location, and shielded from the sun and wind.
Marine Court colonnade, July 2022, looking East.
It is a building on the edge, in many senses.
In case you are a little hazy about the location of St Leonards, here is a map.It is on the English south coast, between Brighton and Dover.
The Brunswick Centre, in Bloomsbury, London has been described as a “heroic prototype for a holistic community” [levittbernstein.co.uk]. There are 560 flats, a cinema, a medical centre and offices in a single development: hence “holistic”. It was radical in that it differs from the Georgian and Victorian houses all around.
Brunswick Centre, Bloomsbury, 13:50 9th August 2022, in Sketchbook 12
It was designed by Peter Hodgkinson during 1966-1970. The original plan was to extend the development all the way up to the Euston Road. There was a significant renovation in 2006 by the architects Levitt Bernstein. They made the shop fronts extend into the plaza in the middle, renovated the flats and added an “anchor supermarket” (Waitrose) at the northern end.
Where I did the drawing
I sketched the pen and ink on location, then repaired to the Store Street espresso on Tavistock Place to do the colour. There are very few colours in the picture: Buff Titanium, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber and a tiny bit of Transparent Pyrrol Orange.
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Jane Sketching 