St John'S Smith Square Concert Hall

This is a former parish church, now a concert hall, located on Smith Square in Westminster. It was originally built between 1713 and 1728 by Thomas Archer, and underwent internal remodelling after a fire in 1742. Severely damaged by fire during World War II, it was restored between 1965 and 1968, returning it to its original 18th-century appearance. The building is constructed from Portland stone, with leaded roofs.

The architecture is a striking and unusual Baroque style, influenced by Archer's experience of continental Baroque designs. The church sits on an island site within the square. The layout is a modified Greek cross shape, characterized by re-entrant angles concealed by rusticated, curved quadrants. The north and south facades feature impressive, pedimented porticoes, approached by wide staircases with retaining walls topped by wrought iron lamp standards. These porticoes include gigantic Tuscan columns in antis, large broken pediments framing columned and pilastered niches with their own broken pediments, eared architrave doorways, and semicircular arched windows. The east and west ends have large Venetian windows set within giant pilasters. Above, an attic is topped with volutes and a broken pediment framing a niche set within another pediment. Four unique corner towers rise from the building, each circular and pierced with Corinthian columns flanking openings, with a curved entablature above and culminating in ogee cupolas.

Inside, there are lobbies behind the porticoes. The east and west ends are divided by broad arches supported on giant Corinthian columns. Two further pairs of columns project from the curved corners of the nave, supporting an entablature that carries a barrel vault across the nave, re-establishing the Greek cross plan internally. Wooden Ionic columns support galleries behind the larger columns. The windows have renewed plain leaded glass. A brick groin-vaulted crypt lies beneath the main structure.

St. John’s forms a key part of a remarkably well-preserved early 18th-century area of Smith Square and the surrounding streets.