Lynch Architects’ addition to the Coroner’s Court in Westminster serves as a place of remembrance and embeds the work of stained glass artist Brian Clarke.
Photos
Christian Cunninghame, David Grandorge, Rachel Elliott, Rory Gaylor, Prudence Cummings & Andy Stagg
On Horseferry Road in west London you’ll find Westminster Coroner’s Court. A quirky-looking building employing red brick and Portland stone, it was built in the late 19th Century to the design of G. R. W. Wheeler. The building is Grade II listed and, according to Historic England, it blends three styles, being “an early example of Arts and Crafts freely-handled neo-Georgian-Jacobean,” with its ground floor windows having a “Venetian composition.”
But behind this eclectic façade takes place rather more serious activities: hearings and investigations into the Grenfell and the Westminster Bridge attacks, to name a couple.
Ground floor plan. To the far left is the Garden of Reflection while on the far right is the Garden of Remembrance.
Lynch Architects’ work sees the addition of a new courtroom as well as a Garden of Remembrance. The Hackney studio’s work is, externally, more laconic than what has come before it, with the new courtroom employing a monolithic stone façade – no windows – and being capped by a semi-circular vaulted roof.
The result is an extension that appears at first to be a giant tombstone. But this isn’t a crass take on death. The masonry is delicately laid out, with the curvature of the new stone structure’s apex being in sync with the with the semi-circular ‘Venetian’ windows and entrance of the original building.
Inside, the courtroom can double up as a jury room if needed, while offices and a waiting room for families has also been added. It’s inside, too, where the stained glass artistry of Brian Clarke comes to life. Clarke has donated the work for the project and, like Patrick Lynch (director of his eponymous practice) has suffered the process of the coroner’s courts. His work bathes the spaces in light and colour, with much of it being cast onto the oak timber surfaces of the interior.
Outside, meanwhile, the new Garden of Remembrance offers a space for contemplation and relief for those in emotional distress. The semi-circular motif can be found here again in the form of a gable, an old bay window and a niche, while the circle completes as a planter and again in a smaller garden found on the other side of the building known as the Garden of Reflection.
Garden of Reflection (left and the Garden of Remembrance (right).
“There is no doubt the new garden space has had a positive effect on the Coroner’s Service,” commented Dr Fiona Wilcox, the coroner, speaking in a statement. “It is beautiful, simple, tranquil and safe. It is a place of reflection and calm for the bereaved, for witnesses and staff. It is a place for quiet remembrance.”
Additional images
Source: Architecture Today
