faulker071

Old building, new use I sometimes say in my posts that such and such a building ‘caught my eye’. There can be few more eye-catching buildings than this one, standing out in its whiteness between trees in leafy Maida Vale. It began life in 1912 as the Maida Vale Picture House and carried on as a cinema until 1949. Since then it has been a dance hall, a casino and bingo hall – and since 1998 a mosque, the Islamic Centre of England. Relatively little work was needed to convert the building, and most of the changes are architecturally cosmetic – although of great importance to the building’s current users: specifically the addition of calligraphic panels and the covering-up of statues in what was the auditorium and is now the prayer hall. The work has been done with sensitivity and one can still appreciate the architecture of the original cinema – the two towers with their domes, the white frontage with its round windows with ornate surrounds. It is good both that this important early cine...

Hats off, here they come… London’s Shaftesbury Avenue is one of the best known streets in the capital – the part between Piccadilly Circus and Cambridge Circus, which is full of theatres, is in the heart of tourist London. But the northern part, north of Cambridge Circus and bordering the Covent Garden area is less well known. If you’re around there, I’d suggest wandering towards the northern end, and having a look at the Covent Garden Odeon, a large Art Deco building that started life as the Saville Theatre in 1931.   The reason I think this building is particularly worth a look is the long frieze that stretches across the facade. It’s the work of the sculptor Gilbert Bayes* and depicts theatre through the ages, with the ancient Greeks and Romans at one end and the twentieth century at the other. ‘Theatre’ is interpreted loosely (spectacle might be a better term), with Roman gladiators and Greek Bacchantes included and the very English sight of Punch and Judy also putting in ...