TESCO EXPRESS WESTBOURNE, DORSET

摘要

The UK's largest retailer knows a thing or two about historic buildings. Its conversion 20 years ago of Wallis, Gilbert and Partners' spectacular 1932 art deco Hoover Factory in west London remains one of the most high-profile commercial conservation projects of recent times. But back then probably not even Tesco could have imagined it would ever occupy a church. Yet last November the supermarket did just that, when it opened a store in a converted Methodist chapel in Westbourne, near Bournemouth. With its pointed arches, turreted buttresses and facades of brick with stone banding, the 4,000m building is a particularly quaint example of the familiar Victorian Gothic Revivalist style that was applied to hundreds of churches across the country throughout the 19th century.