Trinity Court, London

By: F Taperell and Haase
Built: 1934 - 1935

Throughout London there are many Modernist houses and apartment buildings. Trinity Court on Gray's Inn Road near to Farringdon in central London is a fine example of such an apartment building. Trinity Court stands in front of the St Andrew's Holborn Burial Ground dating from 1754 (now a public garden). It provides a contrast to the traditional buildings on Grays Inn Road, not only in its style but also its scale (it is considerably taller than all the buildings in the immediate surroundings). Trinity Court was built between 1934 and 1935 to plans drawn up by the London-based architectural practice of F Taperell and Haase.

Trinity Court is an eight storey apartment block, rectangular in plan, with the shorter sides parallel to the street. The front and rear elevations project slightly at each side giving a Roman 'I' footprint to the building. The main elevation features a central entrance with double doors, with decorative tracery in the windows. Above the doors the entrance features a stepped pediment carrying the building name.

The central section of the main elevation features metal windows on each of the seven floors above the ground floor. There are vertical striations between each window, emphasizing the verticality of the building. The top of this section mirrors the stepped pediment above the entrance, to obscure the lift shaft housing on the roof. Outside of the central section are balconies on each floor, the outer most window on each balcony forms a bay window with a door opening onto the balcony. The rear elevation is identical save for a simpler entrance. The entrance features an incongruous modern porch.

The side elevations of Trinity Court feature six bays, three of the bays on each floor are bay windows projecting out from the side of the building; the remaining bays are recessed into the building to provide access to the balconies for the residents of the apartments.

The entire outside of the building is rendered and painted white, in contrast to the traditional Victorian and more recent brick buildings on that section of Grays Inn Road. The balustrades of the balconies and window frames are painted an attractive light blue colour. The external appearance of the building has been preserved and windows, balconies and balustrades all appear unaltered.

Photographs

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Posted by Richard Coltman on Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Tags: Art Deco, Housing | Permalink


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254 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8JX  |  Google Maps  |  Bing Maps

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