Notebook: Architecture

Stephen Gardiner, The Times

08 March 2004

WITH the sudden withdrawal last December of the Stanhope and Hutchison Whampoa mammoth redevelopment scheme for South Kensington station in the face of overwhelming local opposition, now is the perfect moment to spot-list this important building. It should be done before the developers return with a revised design on, most probably, a more modest scale, hoping that this will be acceptable.

For the casual passer-by, the rundown nature of the station’s street frontages could scarcely merit such a move on the part of the government department concerned — Culture, Media and Sport.

But it does, and some salient facts explain why. The station, which was constructed in 1865, is, together with Paddington, the earliest in the Underground network. It is thus of historic interest. Then it is in a residential conservation area, among streets of true architectural quality and scale. Thirdly, and very important indeed, the station acts as London’s chief entrance to museumland — museums which contain some of the finest collections in the world, of inestimable value to students, schoolchildren, tourists and others.

All these museums are concentrated in a single quarter and served by this station. To simplify access to them in Exhibition Road, a tunnel was made from the station in 1885, the year after the grand opening of the Circle Line. (Significantly, South Kensington was chosen as the venue for that ceremony.) It is not just any old station, any old site: it is one of great cultural distinction.

Yet one would hardly think so from the ten-storey high, elliptical colossus submitted by the developers and designed by Farrell Company. It is all the more surprising because the chairman of Stanhope is also chairman of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe), the government watchdog over urban design.

Spot-listing is thus the second instalment in this saga, which began in 1994 with a scheme by London Underground and the same architect. The scheme was approved in 1999 and — with the withdrawal of the “gasometer”, as the later design is commonly known — has now reappeared in the planners’ offices. Once spot-listing is in place and the station’s safety secured, the third part of the plan must see a proper strategy adopted that respects both its immense potential and the quality of the cultural institutions stretching up to Hyde Park and the Albert Hall.

Remembering that the planning of the unique area owes much to the vision of Prince Albert, the station should be regarded as a national asset. Its restoration and modernisation should be funded by the Government, and its design should be put up for a national competition with an imaginative brief. This is a strategy that would bring public acclaim and, without doubt, enthusiastic backing from Cabe.