Leighton House Museum

We visited Leighton House Museum in January 2014. This majestic building sits on a pretty residential street in leafy Kensington. The museum is the former home of the Victorian artist Lord Frederick Leighton and now displays artworks by Leighton and other pieces he collected.

Our tour started in the dazzling Arab Hall, quite unexpected as you enter through the simple red bricked Victorian facade that sits so politely on the street. Islamic tiles and gold leaf adorn the walls of this jewel of a space. A watery pool at the centre sits calmly underneath a golden dome. The Islamic interior was built by British artisans to Leighton's vision with materials that were imported. Looking up in the space are intriguing perforated screens to spaces beyond. You wonder who might be spying on this space for entertainment...

Our tour continued upstairs to the well lit artist studio where some of Leighton's collection of paintings hung. We were also lucky enough to be taken down into the basement to view the servant's quarters. Leighton's bedroom is one that we see so often when visiting the homes of historic artists/architects - a simple room with a single bed in much contrast to the elegance and affluence of the house that surrounds it. 

The red brick facade is simple at the ground approach but rises proudly to be crowned with pretty brick castellation and hints of the golden dome poking up in the background. We very much enjoyed our insight into the home of a Victorian artist and the jewels that can be preserved in both the art collection and the architecture. 

     Photo credit for the Arab Hall: e-architect 

Raven Row

Not a room out of place in this composition of old and new parts. An 18th century silk mercer's house, a 1970s concrete framed office building are brought together with a new sunken gallery.  Whilst the 18th century interior ripples with mouldings, scalloped cornices and wood panelling, the extension is crisp, sharply detailed and unadorned. At Raven Row, white paint holds no prejudice and coats every surface, unifying old and new. Historical textures are re-rendered in a make up of plaster and white paint, occasionally interrupted by deeply blackened echoes of the past - the charred timber roof lights, or the interior of a used fireplace. The galleries are calm, spaces of a domestic scale, turning its back on the tawdry streets of Spitalfields just outside.