Since over a third of London was destroyed by bombs during World War II, and much of the rest has been obliterated by reckless urban renewal from the 1870s onward, it is hard to believe that a wealth of treasures little known to the public can still be found behind London’s façades.
London: Hidden Interiors offers full-color photographs of 180 places that have been selected from complete range of building types to convey the richness and diversity of London’s architectural heritage, and the many secrets that lie within.
More than 1700 photographs, most of which have been taken specifically for this book, offer panoramic and detailed views of interiors ranging from Harrow School, to the timbered barn at Harmondsworth, to an Art Deco masterpiece, the Daily Express Building at Fleet Street, to the Crossness Engine House, a “cathedral of ironwork,” designed to pump sewage from London and opened by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) in 1865.
Equally glorious are the interiors of the Central Criminal Court, the Art Deco Zoroastrian Centre in Harrow, and the Art Nouveau Debenham House, built in 1905-7 for Sir Ernest Debenham by the architect Halsey Ricardo, who put into practice his theory of structural polychromy, where the expression of architecture is primarily dependent on color — a concept adopted 100 years later by many post-modernist architects.
Lovers of architecture, and especially lovers of London, will welcome this new tool for exploring the glories of the city.