West London College (Hammersmith and Fulham College), London

Time is running out to save this Aalto-influenced masterpiece

LATEST UPDATE: We have been informed that Historic England is recommending that the building’s owners be issued with certificate of immunity from listing.

It will be a tragedy if Bob Giles’ West London College is demolished

Here’s some background that lays out the building’s significance:

By TOM CORDELL

(first published in Building Design in 2019)

Voices from across the world of architecture have called for Bob Giles’ 1970s masterpiece West London College to be saved from demolition. Piers Gough, Owen Luder, Angela Brady. Rowan Moore, and Owen Hatherley have all backed the campaign. 

Last week Docomomo UK held an event to explore this relatively unknown building that was build between 1976 and 1980. Designed by Bob Giles of the Greater London Council (GLC) Architects department, the college brought three existing institutions together on one campus - the largest building created for the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). 

Turned down for listing by Historic England, the building’s owners [LINK: https://www.wlc.ac.uk] plan to close the site and demolish the building next year; selling the land for commercial housing development. 

Architectural historian Philip Boyle outlined the building’s history and significance - arguing that it sat in the same tradition as the Smithson’s Economist building, Neave Brown’s Alexandra Road, and the British Library - each being a complete and significant piece of Modernist city. 

Boyle described the influence of Aalto on the scheme - in particular Säynätsalo Town Hall which Giles visited twice during the design process - “Bricks on the outside pass through to the inside… You can do what you can do with bricks - something from the size of your hand, up to the scale of what you see outside”.

The influence of Aalto extended to the spatial organisation of the site, which as originally designed offered two public walkways - from east-west and north-south through the site - centred on a public courtyard. As Giles explained “My Danish - Scandanavian influences were not just architectural, but also social. If you built a facility like this in Denmark, you wouldn’t get to gate it off. This would be a facility for the whole community. And you’d welcome the neighbours into it.”

The original brief required the scheme to screen off and bridge a planned motorway at the south side of the site, part of the GLC’s infamous Ringway [LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Ringways] motorway plans. When the road scheme was cancelled in 1973, Giles had to modify the design to bring the the raised pedestrian route down to meet the existing Talgarth Road. He created a dramatic stairway and ramp to link the levels - a revision that architect Kate Macintosh commented was the most outstanding part of the scheme. 

But the building also references the past use of the site - retaining the playing field’s original Victorian walls and fencing by Alfred Waterhouse - perhaps best known today as the architect of the Natural History Museum.

Today the walkways through the site - intended by Giles as a promenade through the area - have been blocked by the College. Yet Boyle argued that rather than being demolished, the building and these paths could be easily restored. He discussed how the robust construction could be upgraded to modern insulation standards, and the interior spaces returned to their original glory. 

Giles suggested that rather than demolishing the building to create housing for market sale at prices few local people could afford, that there was sufficient space on the south west of the site to build housing for social rent. While an obvious solution, it’s hard to see how such a project could be realised under today’s neoliberal approach to urban development which prioritises land value extraction over any social benefit. 

Docomomo UK Chair John Forrest said “I think it’s pretty unambiguous - Docomomo likes this building…We want to save it from wrecking balls coming in”. Hans Heinlein - RIBA past vice-president and current President of the Hammersmith Society - agreed that the building must be saved. We will see if they can persuade Historic England to reconsider their listing decision. 

If the current owners can’t be persuaded to appreciate the building’s qualities then it should be handed on to an institution that will. It’s campus design suggest one of London’s many growing universities could make good use of it. 

What’s for certain is that in this age of ecological crisis, our survival demands we stop pulling down perfectly good buildings- especially ones as fine as this.

If you think the same you can sign the petition here: https://www.gopetition.com/signatures/save-hammersmith-and-west-london-college-from-demolition.html

Additional information:

Bob Giles ARIBA

Born 1938

Key Projects:

Bromley Hall School, Tower Hamlets, London

Completed  for the GLC/ILEA in 1969

Grade II listed

Influenced by Jacobsen’s Munkegaard School Denmark 

(AJ - 27 August 1969)

West London College

(completed 1980)

Marinara Tower Kuala Lumpur

(Completed 2000)