How's This For an Executive Box?

摘要

As you walk up the high street, your eye is caught by a portly, self-confident "Wrenaissance" mansion with newly burnished red-brick walls and arched windows. Your gaze is then quickly diverted by another building just beyond it. With no less swagger, this one is as fresh and modern as you can get, with flat rectilinear panels and clear-glass curtain walls. Most striking of all, a vivid orange wall rises up a full three storeys in height next to the main entrance. Built 101 years apart, the two buildings now belong to the same new development. And as they vary in form, style and materials yet are a similar size, they complement each other nicely. The teaser comes in guessing what functions the two buildings perform. The red-brick mansion has a grand civic air, yet now serves a more civic role than was the case originally. It was built as a water-pumping station and set behind forbiddingly high railings. It now stands in an open lawn and inside, its two elegant, light-filled halls lined in white-glazed brick have been converted into a public restaurant and art gallery.