Design For New Café At Chiswick House Gardens Unveiled
The design for Chiswick House Gardens’ new cafe was previewed today (27 June 2007) in advance of a public presentation on 10 July. The design for the café has been carefully considered within the context of the historic house and its surrounding landscape and influenced by wide-ranging feedback, including a public consultation during spring 2006.
Through a survey, the Chiswick House & Gardens Trust invited a cross section of café and park users to put forward their expectations for the new café, which were then fed into the design brief and are now reflected in the newly unveiled plans. The local community will have an opportunity to view the proposals at a special briefing to be held on Tuesday 10 July, at Chiswick Pier from 7pm, where representatives from the Trust will be available to talk though the plans and answer any questions.
The new café is part of a wider master plan – for which The Heritage Lottery Fund has earmarked £7.9 million – to restore and regenerate the historic gardens and reflects the original ideas of landscape garden pioneer William Kent who helped lay out the garden in the early 18th century. The café draws upon his design ideas of white classical pavilions that were framed by a carefully composed informal landscape of mature trees.
The café will be built in the south-east quadrant of the gardens to the east of Chiswick House and close to the site of the current smaller café. The area has been specifically identified for its views to/from Chiswick House and its surrounding parkland in an area previously occupied by service buildings demolished in the 1930s.
The focus of this new landscape will be the white café building seen from the front across the lawns and framed by mature trees when approached from the south and west. From the north garden the new building will be discreet and almost hidden from view by evergreen hedges and yew trees. A new length of lawn will be opened up by the removal of the old café and the straightening of Old Burlington Lane to a line closer to its original route and will provide a broader surrounding for picnics and children to play. The current grassed clearing next to the existing café will be lengthened considerably along an east-west axis parallel to Old Burlington Lane.
The new café’s single-storey building relates to Chiswick House while being clearly separated from it. Its façades are of white Portland stone to match the colour of the House and park pavilions. A colonnade of stone pillars will span across its main elevations, providing an arcaded area around its perimeter. The external perimeter pillars will be constructed of stacked stone blocks and the rear elevations are stone-clad.
The extensively glazed interior will provide seating for 80 people with external covered seating for a further 40, all with a southern aspect over the surrounding gardens. In front of the building is a forecourt for further outside sitting.
To meet public demand the new café will have a large servery and kitchen area to provide a wide choice of value-for-money refreshments during the day and also cater for evening functions. The new building will have public toilets including a dedicated disabled toilet for the use of café visitors and park users.
Peter St John, partner at Caruso St John Architects said, “Chiswick House and its gardens was the site of extraordinary innovations in architecture and landscape design and we are conscious that to build even a small building here is a responsibility. Our design refers to the white stone pavilions that mark out the different spaces of the park and the new building will be a catalyst for the revitalisation of the garden areas around it.”
Janie Burford, Trustee for the Chiswick House & Gardens Trust said, “Our challenge was to design a new café which respects and supports the beauty of historic Chiswick House and its landscape while also meeting the needs of the community who use the Park. Café and park users told us that it was important to them that the building was a ‘one-off-design’ and unique to the park; with this design we believe we have met these requirements, creating a welcome, stylish environment that complements the surrounding locale.”
The design of the café has been approved by The Chiswick House & Gardens Trust. The café and other elements of the regeneration project are to be submitted for planning permission in August 2007. Construction is programmed to commence in summer 2008 and completion is anticipated by autumn 2009.
For further press information please contact Natasha Ley at English Heritage on 020 7973 3252 or Theresa Pugh at London Borough of Hounslow on 020 8583 2181.
The Architects
Adam Caruso and Peter St John established their practice – Caruso St John – in 1990. It has since gained an international reputation for excellence in designing contemporary projects in the public realm. The practice is perhaps best known for the New Art Gallery in Walsall, a commission won in an international competition in 1995. The £16m new building contains spaces for temporary exhibitions and a large permanent collection, together with extensive educational facilities. The gallery opened to public acclaim in 2000, and has won awards for its architecture, programmes and its outreach.
The practice has worked for many institutional and private clients in museums and galleries including the National Gallery, the British Museum and Tate Modern. Most recently it has completed a new extension to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. Its design for the new £12m Centre for Contemporary Art in Nottingham is currently under construction.
Caruso St John’s concern for context and its interest in construction has increasingly led to commissions to extend listed buildings and to work within historic contexts. In 2004 it completed new classroom buildings in Denys Lasdun’s Hallfield School in Paddington (Grade 2 star listed) and is currently working on the renovation of the dining Hall of Downing College, Cambridge (Grade 1 listed).
In 2006 it was short-listed for the Stirling Prize, the UK’s most prestigious architecture award for its work on the Brick House, a private house in west London.
Caruso St John is based in a former factory in east London which it renovated in 2000. The practice is working on a wide range of project types including art galleries, schools, housing, speculative and owner-occupied office buildings and public spaces.
Chiswick House and Gardens
The third Earl of Burlington (1694-1753) originally designed the gardens with the help of William Kent. He drew inspiration form his ‘grand tours’ of Italy and the classic Italianate gardens encapsulate early 18th-century garden design, complementing Chiswick House. Features include an obelisk, temple, amphitheatre, cascade and wilderness as well as a gateway originally designed by Inigo Jones in 1621 and erected at Chiswick in 1738.
Classic busts, sphinxes, columns and an exedra helped to re-create the landscape of antiquity. William Kent designed a rustic cascade and gently serpentined canal.
Developed over 400 years the landscape contains areas of great historical interest displaying the work of other famous garden designers such as Bridgeman and Samuel Lapidge. The House is considered to be one of the world’s most glorious examples of Neo-Palladian design, of exceptional architectural purity.
The gardens are a public park owned by the London Borough of Hounslow. Chiswick House is owned and managed by English Heritage.
The Chiswick House & Gardens Trust was set up April 2005 by English Heritage (which manages the House) and the London Borough of Hounslow (which manages the gardens). The Trust includes local representation.
The Trust unites the management of the site and its key role is to drive forward improvements to Chiswick House and Gardens.
Email this to a friend