The Wapping Project at Shadwell Basin is the reinvention of an old hydraulic pumping station (1890), one of five that used to serve the West End, now converted into a restaurant and art gallery by Jules Wright and her architect husband, Joshua (Shed 54). It’s a superb conversion — a balance of old and new, where knowing ‘intervention’ (why do architects use that aggressive term? policemen intervene, not designers) or its avoidance manages to produce an authenticity that is all too rare, especially where food and art are concerned. The entry space and the adjacent hall (bottom right) were given a new timber roof and diners sit on Charles Eames chairs midst the machinery. Beyond that is a large space for exhibitions and installations. These parts are linked to upper parts by an external galvanised stair and upper deck that links to large old water tanks awaiting future conversion.
Wright imbues her gallery with a ‘no bullshit’ undertone affecting everything about the place and it is surely one of the most worthwhile projects in London.
And, since the restaurant is actually good and its profits enable the art programme to function, you should have something to eat when you go there!
Also take a stroll around the area, around Shadwell Basin, its housing (old and new), maybe pop into the Prospect of Whitby pub opposite.
2 Nicholas Hawksmoor’s baroque church, St. George-in-the-East (1714-29), is a haunting burned-out shell, within which there nestles a much smaller, 1960’s church. It sits opposite Tobacco Dock, on The Highway, E1 with a dark, brooding quality that belongs to a church programme intended to bring moral order to the irreligious masses of early eighteenth century London. This is Hawksmoor expressing that notion of the Divine as something wonderful and sublime, but somewhat ‘terrible’. Details have a chunky, robust and brooding quality.
St. Anne’s, Limehouse, is another Hawksmoor church dating from the same period. Also compare with St. Luke’s.
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Tobacco Dock (Pennington Street, E1. Terry Farrell Partnership, 1987; Tube: Tower Hill.
DLR: Shadwell) was a commercial failure but remains interesting: the original Georgian, high-tech sheds, with wonderfully thin and elegant roof members, together with impressive brick vaulting at the lower level (all 1806); and also for Farrell’s restoration work and the creation of steel and cast-iron fagades for the shops. The massive surrounding brick wall is original, indicative of how defensive the docks once were (pilfering was big business).