Quinlan Terry's Regent's Park villas are six large detached

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house that provided an escape from urban life. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the f ...

s on the north-western edge of London's

Regent's Park Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, Borough of Camden (and historical ...

Driehaus Prize The Driehaus Architecture Prize, fully named The Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame, is a global award to honor a major contributor in the field of contemporary traditional and classical architecture. The Driehaus Prize was ...

winner and

New Classical New classical macroeconomics, sometimes simply called new classical economics, is a school of thought in macroeconomics that builds its analysis entirely on a neoclassical economics, neoclassical framework. Specifically, it emphasizes the import ...

architect

Quinlan Terry John Quinlan Terry CBE (born 24 July 1937) is a British architect. He was educated at Bryanston School and the Architectural Association School of Architecture. He was a pupil of architect Raymond Erith, with whom he formed the partnership ...

between 1988 and 2004. Terry designed each house in a different classical style, intended to be representative of the variety of

classical architecture Classical architecture typically refers to architecture consciously derived from the principles of Ancient Greek architecture, Greek and Ancient Roman architecture, Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or more specifically, from ''De archit ...

: the ''Ionic Villa'', ''Veneto Villa'', ''Gothick Villa'', ''Corinthian Villa'', ''Regency Villa'', and the ''Doric Villa''.

Location

The houses are located on a strip of land between Regent's Park's Outer Circle and the

Regent's Canal Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in ea ...

on the north-western edge of the park, with

Hanover Lodge Hanover Lodge is a Grade II* listed house at 150 Park Road, London NW1, overlooking Regent's Park. It was designed by the architect John Nash, and built for General Sir Robert Arbuthnot. Since then, it has been home to several notable peopl ...

to the south, and opposite

Winfield House Winfield House is an English townhouse in Regent's Park, central London and the official residence of the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom (formally, ambassador to the Court of St. James's). The grounds are , the second largest ...

, the home of the American ambassador, to the east. Grove House is located to the west of the villas on the other bank of the canal. The houses were built by the

Crown Estate The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priva ...

and a private property developer.

History

The site was formerly occupied by Bedford College. The college merged with the Royal Holloway College and moved to Egham in Surrey to become

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RH), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public university, public research university and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. It ...

, having previously been based at Hanover Lodge. The creator of the

, the 19th-century architect John Nash, had intended to construct 48 villas in the park, but only eight were eventually constructed before 1826 when work on his scheme was stopped by the government. In 1987 the Regent Park's Crown Estate Commissioners commissioned the Neo-Classical English architect

to build six detached villas that echoed the style of Nash. Terry said in a 2002 interview that the Crown Estate had told him to "step into Nash's shoes and carry on walking". Prior to the villas' construction Terry had said also that it was a "glorious opportunity to tidy up a superb site" The villas were constructed from the late 1980s to 2002. Several of the villas were purchased by foreign buyers upon completion, with some having to be expanded to include extra staff accommodation.Rachel Kelly. "Mystery behind the £25 million house.", ''The Times'', London, 16 November 1994 Terry described the construction of the villas as "a dream commission" in a 2002 interview given to mark the end of construction of the villas. Terry also said that "There were times when I thought we'd never finish them all" and that "It would have been a disaster if someone had decided to abandon the last three and given them to modernists to design." The first three villas sold for up to £9 million, with the Gothick villa selling for £6.5 million in 1994. Three of the villas were built by the property developers

Ian Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, which is derived from the Hebrew given name ( Yohanan, ') and corresponds to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. This name is a po ...

and

Richard Livingstone Sir Richard Winn Livingstone (23 January 1880 – 26 December 1960) was a British classical scholar and educationist. He is known for his contributions to classical liberal arts education and his role as an academic administrator at Queen's Uni ...

in the 1990s.

Design

The villas were critiqued by Kenneth Allinson and Victoria Thornton in their ''Guide to London's Contemporary Architecture''. Allinson and Thornton felt that the location of the villas was integral to understanding their style, feeling that they made "little sense" outside of Nash's original scheme for building in the park and that they could also be likened to properties on the Bishop's Avenue where "a less erudite version of the Neo-classical detached villa has manifest itself". Of their style Allinson and Thornton wrote that

But these villas are more Palladian than the informal Tuscan ''villa rustica'' format preferred by Nash at Park Village. They are also without leanings toward the picturesque of ''cottages ornés''. Instead, their symmetrical playfulness is of a very serious nature. The outer form wears a smile, but it is all terrible self-conscious and well mannered. Naughty, in fact.

The design of the Corinthian Villa was influenced by the work of the 17th-century Italian

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

architect

Francesco Borromini Francesco Borromini (, ), byname of Francesco Castelli (; 25 September 1599 – 2 August 1667), was an Italian architect born in the modern Switzerland, Swiss canton of Ticino

, and features the first 'serpentine triple-curved facade' in English architectural history. The design of the Gothick Villa is based on

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( , ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be on ...

's mid 16th-century

Villa Saraceno Villa Saraceno is a Palladian Villa in Agugliaro, Province of Vicenza, northern Italy. It was commissioned by the patrician Saraceno family. History Villa Saraceno has been dated to the 1540s, which makes it one of Andrea Palladio's earlier wor ...

, with the extra 'k' in its name indicating that the villa's style is not purely derived from

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High Middle Ages, High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It evolved f ...

. The internal design of the Gothick Villa features details inspired by

Combermere Abbey Combermere Abbey is a former monastery, later a country house, near Burleydam, between Nantwich, Cheshire and Whitchurch, Shropshire, Whitchurch in Shropshire, England, located within Cheshire and near the border with Shropshire. Initially Congr ...

in Cheshire, and

Longner Hall Longner Hall is a Listed building, Grade I listed country house in Longner, Shropshire, England, some 2 miles (3 km) south-east of Shrewsbury in the civil parish of Atcham. It is constructed of red sandstone ashlar in two storeys to an irregula ...

in Shropshire.

Gallery

File:Canalside house, Regent's Park - geograph.org.uk - 1736729.jpg File:Villa, Outer Circle, Regent's Park - geograph.org.uk - 822955.jpg File:Canalside house, Regent's Park - geograph.org.uk - 1736734.jpg File:Regent's Canal on a sunny winter's day - geograph.org.uk - 1736738.jpg

References

Sources

External links

Quinlan & Francis Terry Architects - London houses
{{coord, 51.5310, -0.1657, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Buildings and structures in Regent's Park Buildings by Quinlan Terry Crown Estate Houses completed in the 20th century Houses completed in the 21st century Houses in the City of Westminster New Classical architecture in the United Kingdom Regent's Canal