London’s rich and diverse housing stock is enduring and resilient. From Georgian through to Victorian, Edwardian, and 20th century, the capital and its suburbs are home to an array of familiar typologies that have survived bombs and bulldozers, as well as endless shifts in the way we use our homes. Now, a new book, House London, takes the reader on a journey across all this potential, celebrating the humble, omnipresent, and ever-evolving historical brick home typology.
This evolution is where architects come in. Town houses and apartments exist within an endless, roaming cycle of regeneration and refurbishment as economics and demographics change, offering designers and their clients a chance of infinite variety and experimentation within some relatively tight parameters.
Ellie Stathaki, Wallpaper’s very own architecture editor, has plenty of experience seeking out the capital’s best new architecture. In this new monograph, she’s joined by her sister Anna, an accomplished architectural photographer.
Together, they’ve assembled 50 of the best recent examples of radical home refurbishment, from grand detached houses to industrial apartments and traditional terraces, creating an intriguing snapshot of evolving tastes and innovations shaped by some of the brightest names on the London architecture and interior design scene.
What stands out is the sheer diversity of design approaches on display. Barely two decades ago, the typical London refurbishment had almost become a cliché, a boxy assemblage of white walls, big windows and cookie-cutter minimalism that paid little heed to the original structures.
Those days have long gone, and the projects in this book are all refreshingly different. There’s still refined modernist rigour, of course, but also experimentation with colour, material, and form, as well as renewed respect for original features.
Refurbishments are still the best way for young firms to cut their architectural teeth, but the book also goes big, with expansive renovations that span the spectrum from postmodernist opulence to set-like intrigue and explosions of polychromatic experimentation.
This is a book about interiors as much as it is about architecture, weaving in owners’ stories and lifestyles alongside the creative process.
The lush photography eschews sterile staging in favour of a more intimate, eclectic mix, and the text is an informative and insightful celebration of design’s rightful place at the heart of the domestic realm. §