Theatres and Theatres

In praise of Denys Lasdun, some Brutalist loveliness, and some possible tips

I spent Tuesday in the Royal College of Physicians, that 1960-64 modernist edifice designed by Denys Lasdun. I’d often skirted it, and had always wanted to get inside, but had never managed before, so it was a treat to be asked to talk there at an Institute of Historic Building Conservation conference. Like a lot of the most handsome mid-century buildings all of that micro-mosaic cladding the exterior gives the vast, smooth planes of the surface a subtle texture, so that the design simultaneously works at maxi and micro scale. The great horizontals and the way the stairs cascade sown to the half-levels below creates a kind of homage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. As with the National Theatre, the interiors play with the idea of what you can and cannot see, both buildings hiding theatres where the real work is done. Cylindrical stairwells and vertical windows cutting across horizontal slabs show how the organisation of interior elements are also made sculptural and beautiful.