French consulate – Londres, UK

The proximity to Hyde Park, to the Kensington Palace, and the presence of numerable embassies and cultural institutions make South Kensington one of London’s most posh neighbourhoods.

On the animated artery of Cromwell Road, the French Consulate occupies a classified historic architectural ensemble built in 1861. It serves one of the largest French expatriot communities. In 2000, the decision was made to renovate and expand the complex in order to improve the public reception spaces and respond to a heightened level of security. Three buildings, twin townhouses on Cromwell Road and an elegant ballroom on Cromwell Court, surround a courtyard that is home to a several-hundred-year-old plane tree, whose protection was required in the extension’s building permit. A large visa office is located below grade, under a newly landscaped garden. Sunlight filters down into the waiting room through two monumental glass lanterns, which emerge from the garden parallel to one another: at the far end of the lot next to the adjacent Lycée Français, and in the axis of the interstitial connecting space between the twin townhouses. In a paired- down style, similar to that of the glass lanterns, this interstitial space replaces a mediocre construction to form an abstract sequence between the townhouses and to house circulation and service spaces. Unencumbered, the ample volumes of the townhouses and the ballroom are regained and restored to their original state. They house the consular services.  Finally, the rehabilitation of the sunken courtyards opens up the bellow-grade service spaces to the sunlight.