Architecture
The campus is not as noted for its architecture as it is for its landscaping, since many of its buildings date from the period of rapid UK university expansion in the 1960s and 1970s when cost considerations dominated. Architecturally the most interesting buildings are those that date from before or after this period, including Reed Hall (the 19th century Italianate mansion of the former owners of the Streatham Estate), and the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Xfi (both from the 2000s). The University College's original architect, Vincent Harris, had a master plan for a ring of buildings rising from Washington Singer, but this was realised only in part; apart from Washington Singer, the only buildings he was responsible for are Roborough (originally the University College's library), Hatherly (designed in the 1930s but not built until the 1950s), the Mary Harris Memorial Chapel, and Mardon Hall, the first student residence built on the campus. Sir Basil Spence was the architect of the Physics building.
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Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In short, the building becomes a theatrical demonstration of its functional ideal. In this romanticism, High-Tech architecture is, of course, no different in spirit—if totally different in form—from all the romantic architecture of the past.”
—Dan Cruickshank (b. 1949)