| Architect |
OMA |
|
Date Built |
Completion
2016 |
| Location |
Kensington
High Street at Holland Park |
| Description |
|
In 2016 three
rectangular apartment blocks share a space
beside Holland Park with the new Design
Museum. The museum is located in the
refurbished and redesigned pavilion of the
former Commonwealth Institute. The
apartment blocks occupy parts of the site
where the Institute's office building
once sat. A portion of the profit from
this residential development went towards
the creation of the new museum. On Sunday May 22 of 2016 the Guardian published an article by Rowan Moore entitled "Holland Green review: private property with a public heart". Moore points out that the development is rather unusual in that it, "... is designed by OMA, who are more often famous for provocative cultural projects and public works, and are not from the usual run of architects who design luxury residential speculations in London. They are there because the project’s developer, Stuart Lipton, needed a practice of skill and credibility to solve the problem presented by the Commonwealth Institute and get through what proved to be hard-fought planning battle. De Graaf and OMA, who were appointed to the job in 2008, came up with a plan to demolish most of it and replace it with three square apartment blocks, and leave the pavilion for a cultural purpose, which turned out to be the Design Museum."   The article focuses
on the somewhat uncomfortable
relationship that this project has
created between the wealthy residents of
these apartments and the need for public
access to the museum. It points
out that, "...The
public is also admitted to some of
the landscaped spaces, especially
those that will offer a route to the
museum, albeit managed by a strange
ballet of security gates. These
exist to reassure buyers that they
will be protected from sharing space
with the masses, but the museum will
have the legal right to insist that
they are open at certain times. A
quantum-mechanical degree of
uncertainty between public and
private and open and closed seems
likely. .... De Graaf
describes the protracted struggle to
protect original ideas from external
pressures of planning and finance
(“six weeks of creativity to design
it, and eight years of struggle”)
... But for all that, Holland
Green achieves a degree of
intelligence and public spirit
almost unheard of in luxury
residential developments."
      |
|
|
Holland
Green, Kensington, London
 |
