A new book shows how artists from Turner Prize winner Rachel Whiteread, to Barbara Hepworth and Rex Whistler; architects from William Wilkins to Fello Atkinson; and film directors from Ridley Scott to Stanley Kubrick; have all contributed to or been inspired by the architecture and design of London’s biggest University Campus at the heart of Bloomsbury over the past 200 years.
Written by architectural historian Amy Spencer and Director of The Survey of London Colin Thom, University College London: The Bloomsbury Campus shines a light on 200 years of architecture and art University College London’s Bloomsbury Campus, whose architecture has featured in hundreds of Hollywood films including Gladiator (2000), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Inception (2010) and The Mummy Returns (2001).
Featuring over 270 photos, maps and drawings, many of them specially commissioned, University College London: The Bloomsbury Campus offers the first comprehensive account of the university’s architectural evolution and celebrates the radical London architects and artists that have left their mark on Bloomsbury.
UCL is dominated by the Grade I Listed Wilkins Building (1827) built in the neoclassical style featuring a stunning Greek Revival portico by architect William Wilkins (who is also responsible for the National Gallery) and which was used as the inspiration for the set of the film Gladiator. The Wilkins Building is also home to The Flaxman Gallery, the world’s largest collection of works by the Neo-classical sculptor John Flaxman (1755–1826), originally donated by his family in 1847. At the centre of the gallery stands an 11-foot-tall plaster model of Flaxman’s masterpiece, St. Michael Overcoming Satan, displayed on a structural glass plinth.
UCL is also home to one of London’s most unique buildings Cruciform Building, built in the Victorian Gothic Revival style and designed by Alfred Waterhouse (the National History Museum) in 1896,. Built as a teaching hospital for the university and designed in the shape of a St Andrew’s (diagonal) cross, the layout placed operating theatres at the centre and radiating wings for wards. This configuration was intended to maximize natural sunlight and fresh air circulation while stacking wards over a podium to limit horizontal spread. The original children’s ward in the building also features beautiful ceramic tile artworks by the Art Nouveau artist Margaret E Thompson depicting children’s stories including Sleeping Beauty and Little Bo Peep.
