The Twentieth Century Society

Campaigning for outstanding buildings

Re-use and Re-purposing of Faith Buildings - A tour of C20 and C21 additions to earlier church buildings

Re-use and Re-purposing of Faith Buildings - 9.00am-6.15pm|Saturday 22 June 2019

Led by Ken Powell and John East

With the publication of the Society’s latest book, 100 Churches, 100 Years, 2019 is already turning out to be a big year for the consideration and re-appraisal of religious architecture and on June 20th and 21st the University of Westminster in partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the London Festival of Architecture will be hosting a national conference on Contemporary Faith Architecture entitled:  Spiritual, Sacred, Secular: the Architecture of Faith in Modern Britain https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/spiritual-sacred-secular-the-architecture-of-faith-in-modern-britain-tickets-61564412816 . To complement the Conference the Twentieth Century Society have organised a weekend visiting some of the buildings and exemplars discussed.  The first day, Saturday, will look at the re-use, re-purposing, adaption and restoration of religious buildings, whilst on the second day, Sunday, we will examine a range of new and recently completed faith buildings.  These are ground breaking events and during the weekend we will see up to 20 buildings which have never been visited by the Society before, many of which are not normally open to the general public.

The tour will be led by the noted architectural writer and former Director of the Society, Ken Powell, assisted by John East.  We will start at Hackney Wick Overground Station at 9.00am, where we will visit St. Mary of Eton, George Bodley’s 1892 Grade 11* listed church, restored, re-purposed and extended by Matthew Lloyd Architects in 2014.    From there we will visit no less than 3 adaptions and extensions undertaken by Dow Jones Architects, comprising Christ Church, Spitalfields; the Garden Museum at Lambeth Palace (where people can get their own lunch or find lunch nearby) and St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington where the re-ordering and extension to George Street’s Grade I listed masterpiece will only just have been completed.  During the morning we will also visit Arups Associates seminal 1973 conversion of the former Holy Trinity Church in Southwark to the Henry Wood Hall.

In the afternoon we will examine St. Matthew’s, Great Peter Street, built in 1849-51 to the designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott with a Lady Chapel by Sir Ninian Comper, which was ravaged by fire in 1977 and rebuilt in 1982-84 by Donald Buttress.  After visiting the beautiful refurbishment and re-ordering of St. Augustine’s, Hammersmith by Roz Barr Architects, we will see the radical transformation of Drayton Green Church, Ealing by Piercy and Co., completed last November, before inspecting the modernist and one might say brutalist (in the best sense of the word) church set within the 18th century shell of All Saints, Isleworth by Micheal Blee from 1967-70.  The event will conclude by looking at the rebuilding of St. Mary’s, Barnes by Edward Cullinan in 1984, and one of our ‘100 Churches’, before participants are dropped off at Barnes Station.

During the day clients and their architects (including Matthew Lloyd and Biba Dow) will be present to talk through their schemes.

Meeting point:  Hackney Wick Overground Station (9.00am).  There are regular trains every 10 minutes from Liverpool Street Station.

Finishing point:  Barnes Overground Station (6.15pm).  Regular trains go to London Waterloo Station every 10 minutes.

Price:  £45.00 C20 Members and attendees at the Spiritual, Sacred, Secular Conference

£55.00 Non-Members 

For further information contact John East (john.east@hotmail.com). 

Please note: lunch not provided. Bring your own or choose from shops and cafes en route. 

 

Booking Closed

Unfortunately, booking is closed for this event and we are no longer able to accept new bookings.