Fitzroy Place, London



Architect
Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands & Sheppard Robson
Date Built
Completion 2015
Location
Mortimer Street
Description
The former Middlesex Hospital was demolished to create a three acre development site in the heart of London.  Fragments of the original facade were saved along with the Fitzrovia Chapel, as you can see in the images below.





The site was transformed into a mixed-use building incorporating residential apartments, offices, community facilities and a public space.   If you look carefully at the image below, you can see that the chapel was preserved and, as you can see in the images at the bottom of this page, refurbished.



The Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands website says that, "... As architects for the overall concept and five of the seven buildings, the practice was charged with addressing the issues of relating what is a large scheme to the finer grain of the Fitzrovia streetscape, differentiating the office and residential components through detailing and entrances, and providing vertical articulation to ensure a legible bottom, middle and top. ....



... Open market residential apartments, affordable housing, retail, restaurant, Grade A commercial space are included on the site, as well as space for local occupiers including a Primary Care facility and an education facility for the local primary school. Centred on a new landscaped public realm that embraces the Grade II* listed chapel, the masterplan now opens up what was a closed city block to the surrounding streets and creates new routes."



"The practice is delivering 291 residences with interior designers Johnson Naylor. A wide variety of luxury apartments include suites of one, two and three bedrooms, duplexes and penthouses. Designed to optimise the natural light and views, most have their own private outside space. "


The Sheppard Robson website explains that, "... The office buildings are designed to complement one another in offering an optimised range of office space in terms of floor space and configuration. Each meets demands of modern occupiers in terms of efficiency and flexibility for subdivision and open/cellular space planning options, whilst the coherent design character inside and out avoids an anodyne working environment. The upper floors of each building step back to provide a generous terrace and panoramic views of the London skyline. The larger east building features a dramatic atrium and hotel style lobby ....



.... whilst the west building features a distinctive vaulted roof profile creating lofty accommodation at the top storey."







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Fitzrovia Chapel



The Open House London website provides these facts about the chapel:

The Grade II* listed chapel was once a place of quiet contemplation and prayer for staff and patients of The Middlesex Hospital. Whilst the hospital itself has made way for new development, the chapel has undergone a £2 million refurbishment. Never dedicated and never consecrated, this building will in future be dedicated to the people of Fitzrovia. It will be open for quiet contemplation, for chamber concerts of music and the spoken work, and it will be available to hire for celebrations of life events.



The chapel was built and designed by one of the greatest Victorian architects, John Loughborough Pearson (1817-1897), and was originally developed as a memorial to Major Ross (MP), former Chairman of the Board of Governors. Having been awarded the RIBA gold medal in 1880, Pearson worked on some of Britain’s finest building’s including Truro Cathedral, Bristol Cathedral and Westminster Hall. With work having begun in 1891, after Pearson’s death the chapel was completed by his architect son, Frank.



Structurally completed in the mid-1920s, the chapel was not formally opened until 1929 after much of The Middlesex Hospital was demolished and rebuilt around it. The chapel has a simple rectangular nave with a small ante-chapel at the west end. The ante-chapel is also lined with memorial tablets of white marble with incised inscriptions, which have been restored and retained in a sensitive gesture to important hospital memories. These provide an invaluable record of the chapel’s past. Built in red brick, decorative marble and mosaics were later added.