This rather fine pavilion building is the visible outcrop of an fine and extensive programme of work focusing upon the need for an education centre and a 750 Ondaatje Theatre as parts of a listed Norman Shaw building. The pavilion houses the Society’s archives and provides a lecture / meeting / gallery space as well as an undergound reading room. The entry sequence and consideration of views to notable adjacent buildings (including the Albert Hall) are well handled. Overall, the clarity and directness of the strategy and the gamesmanship command respect even though one might carp at one or two of the secondary level detailing.
(The pavilion, for example, has a daring concrete structure, but its relations to services and its external resolution don’t quite get there.)
The relations between internal spaces and the new garden work particularly well. The currently obligatory conceit of artistic presence adopts the form of glazed facade panels from Eleanor Long set along the paving wall (why the architects could not have done the same thing remains obscure).