Our Favourite Buildings Alain's Favourite Buildings

Date Published:

27/05/2008

Alain reveals his five favourite buildings in the UK and talks through why these chosen few mean so much to him...

Senate House, Bloomsbury, London

This elegant Portland Stone building was completed by the architect Charles Holden in the 1930s. Holden designed a lot of underground stations around London, including White City and Arnos Grove. There are hints of art deco in all his buildings, but essentially Holden was a modern architect who had a feeling for the classical tradition and wanted to update it for his own age.

Senate House is very austere, and could be faulted for being cold, but I love its serenity. It was built to last for centuries and the attention to detail is amazing - if you look at the handrails, they are pieces of art in themselves.

As a library for the University of London, it's a very idealistic building, it's got a very high idea of what scholarship should be about. You really feel it's been designed with the noblest conception of learning in mind. Having used the library for many years, I know what it's like to be weighed down by the boredom and tedium of reading. This building provides anyone who works in it with a little uplift and joy.

Go to the Senate House Library website >>

Credit: Tim Crocker

Laban Dance Centre, Deptford

This is one of the two buildings in the UK designed by the fabulous Swiss duo Herzog and de Meuron (the other is the Tate Modern). The pair started off as cool modernists but recently they've abandoned the austerity of modernism and are taking a more playful route.

Laban, a dance conservatoire in south-east London, is an example of the new interest in ornamentation and prettiness. It's a remarkably delicate looking building. The walls are made of translucent glass and are lined with coloured lights, so that it's like looking at a box of sweets through a frosted glass jar. Day or night, the light washes out from the building on to the surrounding grey landscape. Architects like Herzog and de Meuron seem to be rediscovering the idea that buildings should be playful and beautiful, as well as functional and efficient.

Go to the Laban Dance Centre website >>

Dirty House, Shoreditch, London

This is a residential building in east London designed by the young British architect, David Adjaye. It's made of painted black brick and looks tough and urban. However, on the very top of the building, there sits a very elegant rooftop gallery made of glass.

The contrast between glass and black brick is seductive, it suggests that we could all balance the masculine and feminine sides of ourselves. The building shows how you can build in very run-down inner city areas and make something good not by denying where you are, but precisely by acknowledging and celebrating it.

The building could be called brutally beautiful. We've got one word, beauty, in our vocabulary to talk about architecture, but really, this covers a whole range of different kinds of attraction. Maybe there should be a subcategory of beauty called 'industrial beauty' to capture what's special about this building.

Visit David Adjaye's website >>