I always like seeing the longlist for the RIBA regional awards because it provides a good conspectus of current building trends. The London list is vast, including, I’m pleased to see, David Chipperfield’s radical renovation of the Museum of Mankind building in Burlington Gardens, with Julian Harrap rightly credited as a partner in the project.
I notice that lots of the projects are now in East London, including the winner, which is Glenn Howell’s new building for English National Ballet on City Island, a peninsula next to Canning Town, a thoughtful, if reticent project, which probably shows the taste for lower key, less showy architecture post-COVID. Lots look worth visiting.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
We went on a tour of the English National Ballet building pre pandemic and were really wowed by it. What is special is the opportunities it offers – through for example a large viewing window – to watch rehearsals and the like in the building. It’s very welcoming. It also has fantastic workshop facilities and we were able to see the dyeing vats and sewing rooms where costumes are created. With the London Film School and part of Queen Mary’s in the form of the London City Institute of Technology moving to City Island (which many of us remember as the site of the very smelly Pura margarine factory) it promises to become a lively place.
The Peter Barber McGrath road development continues to give us great pleasure here in E15 (it is on my route to the post office). I enjoyed watching it going up but am enjoying even more watching family lives being established in it.
I’ve only used its loos ! Charles
A key test of any building. The ones at the new Crafts Council Gallery in Islington are particularly fine! Nice to see the article about Romilly in the new issue of Crafts magazine by the way.
Ah, we haven’t seen Crafts yet. Maybe it’s at home. Charles