23 Kensington Place

23 Kensington Place, Kensington, London

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Private house1966-7 to the designs of Tom KayStructural engineer Hubert Heller. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1409986
Date first listed:: 27-Feb-2013
List Entry Name:: 23 Kensington Place
Statutory Address:: 23 Kensington Place, Kensington, London

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1409986
Date first listed:: 27-Feb-2013
List Entry Name:: 23 Kensington Place
Statutory Address 1:: 23 Kensington Place, Kensington, London

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: 23 Kensington Place, Kensington, London

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Kensington and Chelsea (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ2521480283

Summary

Private house. 1966-7 to the designs of Tom Kay. Structural engineer Hubert Heller.

Reasons for Designation

No. 23 Kensington Place is listed at Grade II for the following principal reason: * Architectural quality: built for a photographer and his opera singer wife, to a difficult brief that required a music studio with a grand piano on a very narrow site; the result is tough yet elegant, slightly reminiscent of Dutch Expressionism and wholly of its time.

History

The house was designed by the architect Tom Kay (1935-2007) for the photographer Christopher Bailey and his wife, the opera singer Angela Hickey. The brief included provision for a singing practice studio. It replaced a derelict house of c1840, which Kay was initially invited by Christopher Bailey to remodel in 1964. A review in The Times (21 September 1967) described it as 'bold and assertive, straightforward and unadorned, a genuine product of its age, as its neighbours are of theirs'.

Details

MATERIALS: load bearing walls, steps and ramp of brick with Staffordshire blue brick facings. Timber is varnished British Columbian pine. Reinforced concrete floor slab at first-floor level, and stair of pre-cast concrete units. Windows are double-glazed throughout, except for the glass dome above the stair tower. Flat roof.

PLAN: four-storeys stacked on a narrow site at the end of a terrace. A spiral staircase running through all floors extends beyond the building line on Hillgate Street, maximising room space, and emerges above the roof level to give access on to the roof terrace. The basement houses the dining room, with spare bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and utility room opening from it. The kitchen leads directly to the sunken garden on the rear (north) side of the house. The entrance, along with two further bedrooms and a bathroom, is on the ground floor, raised slightly above street level; to the north is the garage. The first floor is an open-plan double-height living room with access to a small terrace above the garage. A gallery with study stretches diagonally across the living room at its north end. A split-level roof terrace is above.

EXTERIOR: the house occupies a corner site at the junction of Kensington Place and Hillgate Street. The Kensington Place elevation is narrow (13' 6" wide), and is blank except for a vertical strip of windows where the house adjoins the neighbouring terrace. The entrance, in Hillgate Street to the west, is reached via a short ramp. This elevation is dominated by the cylindrical form of the stair tower, balanced by the tall narrow first-floor window on the right and the lower projecting bulk of the garage to the left. An external staircase between the house and garage leads down to the kitchen and basement garden. On the north side, a glazed roof slopes down from the upper terrace to the sliding doors that open onto the lower terrace atop the garage roof.

INTERIOR: internal walls are fair-faced Staffordshire blue brick, except for the party wall which is plastered. Internal partitions are of varnished beech ply. The double-height living room is the principal space, floored in blue brick and lit by two narrow windows, also double-height, designed to ensure privacy. (The fireplace here is a later addition.) A proportion of the original fitted furniture remains, including cupboards and a dumb-waiter that runs from basement to first floor. Some alterations have been made to the layout of the lower two floors, and the kitchen and bathroom have been refitted.

Sources

Books and journals
Modern Houses (Condé Nast), (1974), 36-9
Engel, M, Wohngebaude, (1980)
Park, J, Houses for Today, (1971), 23-7
Webb, M, Architecture in Britain Today, (1969), 119
'A+U (Japan)' in A+U (Japan), (February 1979)
'Architectural Review' in , (August 1968), 113-4
'House and Garden' in , (January 1969), 44-9
'Architectural Review' in Architectural Review, (January 1967), 38
'Architects' Journal' in , (January 1971)
Manser, J, 'The Times' in New Neighbours With Style, (21 September 1967), 9

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.