Tag Archives: embassy

A builder cast in metal in London’s Pimlico near the Albanian embassy

Posted on by
Reply

THE ALBANIAN EMBASSY is on St Georges Drive in London’s Pimlico. On our way there we passed a statue that stands on a triangular plot where St Georges Drive meets Denbigh Street at an acute angle. The statue commemorates Thomas Cubitt (1788-1855), who was born in Norfolk and died in Surrey. It was created in 1995 by William Fawke (1948-2018).

The metal sculpture depicts Cubitt standing on a platform facing a pile of building bricks. In his left hand, he holds a long, notched stick – a brick measure. The platform upon which he stands is supported by balustrade bottles (‘balusters’) that are used to support the railing that rests upon them. The bottles supporting Cubitt are the type found on the houses built by Cubitt.

Cubitt was the son of a carpenter. During his trip to India as a ship’s carpenter, Thomas earned sufficient money to be able to establish a building business in London’s Holborn. In cooperation with his younger brothers, William and Lewis (who designed Kings Cross station), his firm took off. He was an excellent organiser, and created teams of builders that included every branch of the trade. Some of his projects are listed in an interesting web page (https://victorianweb.org/art/architecture/cubitt/bio.html):

“By now he was a close friend of the royal family, having collaborated with Prince Albert on the design for Osborne House, which he then built for him. He also won the contract to extend Buckingham Palace, and it was Cubitt as well who orchestrated the dismantling of Nash’s Marble Arch there, and its reassembly at Hyde Park, ready for the Great Exhibition. The Exhibition itself was a project suggested to Prince Albert by Cubitt, after a conversation with a friend who had recently visited an exhibition in Paris. From 1839 Cubitt was an active member of the Institution of Civil Engineers; he was a leading figure in the campaigns for a main drainage system and a more extensive Thames Embankment, and rooted for limiting smoke emissions and conserving open space: Battersea Park owes its existence largely to him.”

In addition to this and other major projects, he built much of Tavistock Square and great swathes of housing in Pimlico. So, it is fitting that his statue has placed in the midst of the houses which his firm created in Pimlico. It was interesting to ‘discover’ the statue of Cubitt shortly before we entered the embassy which is housed in one of the houses he built in Pimlico.

Golden eagle over Grosvenor Square

Posted on by
Reply

I LIKE SEEING SCULPTURE in open air locations. For example, I have enjoyed the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the garden containing works by Henry Moore (near Much Hadham), Barbara Hepworth’s Garden in St Ives (Cornwall), and the annual Frieze sculpture shows in Regents Park. Until the end of August 2023, the Waddington Custot Gallery is exhibiting several large metal sculptures by Bernar Venet (born 1941 in France). Yesterday, the 8th of July 2023, we visited Grosvenor Square where these artworks are on display alfresco. Although they are not the most exciting sculptures I have ever seen, they looked good amongst the trees and lawns of the square.

The west side of Grosvenor Square is occupied by a large building that was until recently (2018) the Embassy of the USA. Constructed in 1960, it was designed by the Finnish architect Eero Saarinen (1910-1961). The structural engineering firm responsible for the edifice was FJ Samuely, which was founded by the Austrian-born Felix James Samuely (1902-1959), who fled to Britain in 1933 to escape the Nazi persecution. When he died, Frank Newby (1926-2001) became the firm’s senior partner. It was he who supervised the structural aspects of the realisation of Saarinen’s project in Grosvenor Square. One of Frank’s colleagues was my uncle Sven Rindl (1921-2007), who joined Samuely in 1954 and later became a director. It was my uncle who played an important role in creating the former embassy’s distinctive appearance when viewed from Grosvenor Square.

Just beneath the top of the centre of the façade of the embassy that faces Grosvenor Square, there is an enormous sculpture of an eagle. Gold coloured, this huge (35 feet wingspan) symbolic creature was created by the Polish-born sculptor Theodore Roszac (1907-1981). What few people know about this very visible open-air sculpture is that it has remained firmly attached to Saarinen’s building for well over 60 years thanks to my uncle Sven. For, it was my uncle who designed the eagle’s tethering to the building.

When we went to Grosvenor Square yesterday, the first thing I did was to see if the eagle was still in place. It was, and as I have just discovered, it is likely to remain there because the building is subject to a statutory conservation order. In contrast, the sculptures by Vernet, part of the Mayfair Sculpture Trail (www.bondstreet.co.uk/articles/art-in-mayfair-sculpture-trail-2023), will be removed by the 29th of August 2023.

PS: Did you know that the Duke of Westminster leased the land on which the Embassy stands to the Americans for one golden peppercorn per year in gratitude for what the USA did to help Britain in WW2?

Americans in Mayfair

Posted on by
Reply

MY UNCLE SVEN Rindl (1921-2007) was a structural engineer. He was involved in the construction of the building on the west side of Mayfair’s Grosvenor Square, which used to house the Embassy of the USA until recently. About yards south of the former embassy building, there is another place associated with the USA on South Audley Street. Far older than the embassy, this is the Grosvenor Chapel, whose foundation stone was laid in 1730 by Sir Richard Grosvenor (1689-1732), the local landowner. The relatively simple brick and stone church with some neo-classical features was ready for use in 1731. When the church’s 99-year lease ran out in 1829, it became adopted as a chapel-of-ease (i.e., a chapel or church within a parish, other than the parish church) to St George’s Hanover Square.

Until very recently, I had often passed the Grosvenor Chapel when going to and from The Nehru Centre, also on South Audley Street, but had never entered it. Yesterday (26th of August 2022), the doors were open and, being early for a dance performance at the Nehru Centre, I looked inside the chapel. Its interior is simply decorated. The wide nave lies below a barrel-vaulted, plastered ceiling. Galleries supported by columns with Ionic capitals flank the north and south sides of the nave. The chancel is separated from the nave by a screen with openings, each of which is flanked by pairs of Ionic columns. The screen was added by the architect John Ninian Comper (1864-1960) when he remodelled the church’s interior in 1912.Ionic columns with their bases on the gallery support the ceiling of the nave. Windows (with plain glass panes) on two levels, both below and above the galleries, give the chapel good natural illumination. In summary, the simple, white-painted chapel, though not large, feels spacious. Its simplicity is a complete contrast to its neighbour, the flamboyant Gothic Revival style Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception.

An inscribed stone plaque on the west front of the chapel records its American connection. The words on it are:

“In this chapel the Armed Forces of the United States of America held Divine Service during the Great War of 1939 to 1945 and gave thanks to God for the Victory of the Allies”

The American General Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) was amongst those who worshipped there during WW2. Many years before that, another person connected with the USA, John Wilkes (1725-1797) was buried in the chapel. Wilkes, a radical journalist and politician, was a supporter of the American rebels during the American War of Independence.

America (i.e., the USA) has been associated with Mayfair since it gained independence from the British. Its first embassy was in a house in Mayfair belonging to John Adams (1735-1786), who was the first US Minister to the Court of St James (between 1785 and 1788). The embassy’s Chancery moved several times before 1938, when it was housed in 1 Grosvenor Square, now the home of the Canadian High Commission. Thus, during WW2, it was close to the Grosvenor Chapel. The embassy building, in whose construction my uncle was involved, was designed by the architect Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), and completed in 1960. By January 2018, the embassy had shifted from Grosvenor Square to a newly constructed edifice across the Thames at Nine Elms.

Returning to the small chapel, a small note about its name. The place’s website (www.grosvenorchapel.org.uk) explained:

“It retains its title of Chapel because it is not, and never has been a parish church, and its continuing existence is entirely dependent upon the generosity of those who worship here regularly or visit from time to time.”