I have been alerted to the plans to demolish and redevelop the site of St. George’s Pool in Shadwell.
It sounds as if the pool has been in trouble for a while in spite of being expensively refurbished in 2012. It was closed in 2020 because of COVID and has not been re-opened since.
Its architect, Reginald Uren is an interesting figure. Born in New Zealand, he was trained as an architect there before coming to London in 1929 to study at the Bartlett and work for Charles Holden on some of the stations on the Piccadilly Line. In 1933, he won the competition to design Hornsey Town Hall which he did in a grandly Scandinavian style. In the 1950s, his firm, Slater, Uren and Pike, was responsible for the design of John Lewis and additions to Peter Jones. The swimming baths were designed in the mid-1960s.
This is what they used to look like:-
This is what is planned to replace it:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
I loved that pool and have happy memories of learning to swim there.
What a shame with the new design.
I didn’t know Uren designed Hornsey Town Hall which is a lovely building that now has an identikit new build housing complex bolted on to it.
https://www.makearchitects.com/projects/hornsey-town-hall/
Uren’s work has followed me from my my childhood ‘hood’ to Crouch End neighbourhood where I’ve lived for the last 20 years.
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I also learned to swim there. I was born in 1963 so it must have felt very fancy in those days! If I close my eyes I can almost see the crocodile of pupils from St Mary’s and St Michael’s Primary School heading up the Highway to get there. And I can certainly smell the chlorine!
It seems such a shame to lose such a solid building. I see a replacement pool is planned along with what is described as genuinely affordable family sized housing which is certainly needed. My hope is that the new building which appears from the artist’s impression to be brick will actually be that, rather than those frequently used brick slips. There is a new student residence at the end of our road being built with those. It’s just not the same and, as I understand it, is enviromentally wasteful.
I see that those at the planning meeting raised a number of concerns about the new building’s impact on St George’s in the East. All in all it was clearly yet another tricky decision for Tower Hamlets Council.
Dear Joan, Yes, I was cautious about being too negative because, as you say, Tower Hamlets are under pressure to deliver new housing and there must be so few sites for large-scale development. Charles