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Visit to College Court
What a delight this place is; it enhances the area and provides a fine asset for the University. As a conference centre it must ensure more than first-class accommodation for visitors; it must bring a lasting experience of good design and quality construction. Completed in 1960 as a residence for female students and known as College Hall, it was the work of architects Leslie Martin and Trevor Dannatt, principally the latter, who also designed Vaughn College/Jewry Wall Museum. The two men were to go on to design Harvey Court, Gonville and Caius, Cambridge. (ADG visit 2012) And both architects had been with the London County Council in the post-war years; surely the most creative and influential group of architects ever to come together. College Hall Leicester became vacant about ten years ago. It had then been for some years accommodating both men and women but it could no longer meet the standards students expected. Subsequently, selling for conversion to private apartments came to be considered but the buildings had been listed (Grade II) in 1993 and their architectural merits had to be retained. With the University encountering difficulties in establishing a conference centre on other sites in its ownership attention turned to College Hall. |
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The visit to College Court, to see the way it has been changed, was particularly felicitous for three members of our Group. Diana, who found a great deal to admire about the conversion, had visited the former hall often in the days when her god-daughter was resident there as a student. And, similarly, it was a pleasure for Eileen and Raymond to return to the building where they had their wedding reception in early 1962. (Maybe the first public use of the building) |
Visit to Hastings House: Stoughton
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Architecture of quality is the product of both an imaginative architect and client. The dialogue and chemistry between these in the evolution of the Design Brief is fundamental. It has been particularly interesting and stimulating to experience this outcome in our visits to the Purdy and Hastings houses both of which exemplify this quality. Kanti Chhapi’s characteristic internal spatial design linking house and garden at two levels, operates successfully in both. |
Another View Leicester
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