Wednesday, September 6, 2017

One Pancras Square

One Pancras Square by David Chipperfield, Pancras Square, King's Cross, London

One Pancras Square by David Chipperfield, 2013
Pancras Square, King's Cross
London, September 2016

“So elemental is the expression of the little office block that David Chipperfield Architects has completed at King’s Cross that its configuration can be described, pretty comprehensively, in a couple of sentences. Nine slabs of the same rectangular plan span between a core and a peristyle of evenly distributed columns. Glazing is recessed from the column line at ground level – forming a continuous colonnade – and across the entirety of the major south-facing elevation – forming balconies – but elsewhere structure and glass align. Judged as diagram, the design of One Pancras Square could scarcely be more economical and yet, for all its cultivated simplicity, the reality proves surprisingly ambiguous in tectonic effect and rich in historic association. Fundamental to that complexity is the energy that the architect has invested in the design of the columns.” (One Pancras Square, The Architect's Journal)

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