Royal College Of Physicians

Royal College of Physicians, St Andrew's Place, Camden

College building, built 1960–64, extended 1995–96 by Denys Lasdun and Partners. The structure is constructed from pre-stressed concrete clad with very pale grey porcelain mosaic in two different patterns and dark blue engineering bricks.

The building is arranged on a T-shaped plan with offices facing Albany Street, the main entrance facing Regent's Park and the garden facade to St Andrew's Place. The design concept is sculptural, with the constituent parts of the college expressed both in form and materials.

The exterior comprises three storeys and a lower ground floor. The Regent's Park front features two plain pillars supporting a cantilevered, flat-roofed library gallery with narrow vertically set paired windows grouped on returns. Beneath these, the library well forms a canopy with a single central column and angle windows, leading to the recessed glass entrance approached by brick steps. To the right sits a partially sunken lecture theatre of brick with two small ground floor windows, its form of swelling curves angled at one corner and topped by a shallow, steel-framed pyramidal roof. The right-hand return to St Andrew's Place continues the lecture theatre line, with at second floor a mosaic band containing grouped vertically set windows to the library gallery, committee rooms and working library. The staircase hall is expressed by a large glass window (the largest sheet of glass possible at the time) and at roof level by projecting twin linked service towers with corresponding voids. Facing the garden, beneath the projecting cubic form of the Censors' Room, is a brick-faced polygonal Members' Room with two canted bay windows. The Albany Street facade features strips of brick alternating with strips of windows having stone lintels; the rectangular President's Flat sits at roof level. To the right, a vehicle archway opens to the north facade with a colonnaded ground floor and narrow windows to the first and second floors accessed via concrete curved stairs. All vertical windows include small inset drains to prevent water staining the mosaic.

The interior presents an impressive sequence of spaces centred on a large, white marble-clad, full-height stair hall with two tiers of galleries and a modern baroque marble staircase. The staircase is self-supported and climbs through four turns from the upper ground floor to the first floor gallery, providing diverse views and vistas. The lower entrance hall has steps to the lower ground floor on the right and an elegant spiral staircase beneath a curved and shaped solid balustrade with brass rail providing an alternative route. The Censors' Room contains panelling with paired Corinthian pilasters salvaged from the former college of the 1670s by Robert Hooke, with four vertical slit windows at the angles. Double doors to the lecture theatre are fronted by two pillars; the theatre is steeply raked to seat 300 with an egg-shaped auditorium. The Dorchester Library is accessed from the gallery and is double height with a gallery, vertical slit windows, top lighting and muninga wood panelling. Opposite the gallery sits the two-storey Osler Room, a dining hall, separated from the single-storey reception room by a 60-foot-long hydraulically lifted and lowered wall. The second floor gallery provides access to the Dorchester Library gallery, the Osler Room gallery, the Wellcome Library and committee rooms. A meeting room and committee room were added by Denys Lasdun and Partners in accordance with the ceremonial plan and purity of design found in the original work.

The Royal College of Physicians was purpose-built to replace earlier accommodation on other sites. It is a prestigious building combining ceremonial features with day-to-day functionalism. It was awarded the RIBA Bronze Medal in 1964 and the Civic Trust Award in 1967. Denys Lasdun was given the Trustees Medal of the RIBA for this building in 1992.