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Clerkenwell Apartment

The original apartment plan was fragmented into small cellular rooms with a dark central corridor and labyrinthine route through to the large terrace.

The space was stripped back to the concrete frame and re-organised to have private spaces arranged around a generous central drawing room opening out onto the terrace. Private rooms are screened off from the drawing room by reeded glass steel framed doors.

Within the monochrome palette moments of richness, texture and colour are added by coloured marbles, stained oak and walnut, velvet and wool soft furnishings.Brass elements contrast with matt black metalwork to doors and windows.

Ebony-stained oak panelling lines the walls and ceilings of the TV room and study. The panelling is designed to have depth and shadow, forming a recessed seating area, large storage and a workspace.

Text

James Gorst’s work has helped to heal one of the most unnecessary and painful wounds in contemporary British architecture: between the traditionalists and the modernists. Like Louis Kahn in the United States or Peter Zumthor in Switzerland, Gorst reminds us that modernism can be beautifully reconciled with the underlying principles of classicism and that modern materials and idioms can carry all the elegance, dignity and grandeur associated with historical masterpieces.

Alain de Botton

© 2023 James Gorst Architects. All rights reserved.

Design: Tom Green Design. Build: Designagogo.