A complete interior regeneration and lighting scheme for Christopher Wren’s largest Grade I Listed parish church.
Client
St Andrew Holborn Church Guild Church Council
Programme
Full interior refurbishment, new lighting, and new chapel designs
Project Lead
Laura Dinares Couto
Year
2016-2023
Introduction
DaeWha Kang Design has undertaken a complete interior regeneration of Christopher Wren’s largest parish church. With its interior gutted by an incendiary bomb in World War II, the church was reconstructed by the architects Seely and Paget in the early 1960’s. Our studio has completed a new interior design and lighting scheme for the interior of this Grade I Listed church. While the general approach is one of creating a harmonious and calm space, we also introduced a series of contemporary altarpieces and religious artefacts in precious metal.
The design challenge
How to create a remarkable, timeless space that respects the rich history of the site while creating something truly of our time for now and the future.
The design solution
The project is a full reordering and redecoration of Saint Andrew Holborn, Christopher Wren’s largest parish church.
The interior was destroyed in the war and rebuilt by Seely and Paget in the early 1960’s. Being short on budget, they opted for a linoleum floor, and over the last fifty years the church has also suffered from a great deal of clutter.
Our work began with the Guild Vicar’s vision of creating a numinous, serene space with small and large spaces for prayer and gathering. A spring discovered beneath the west end gave an opportunity to declutter the existing Lady Chapel and create a new baptistery chapel housing the original Foundling Hospital font. Spring water was filtered and brought up to be used for baptisms.
The Lady Chapel was then relocated to the north aisle, creating a badly needed space for small services centred on a ten-foot high brass reredos designed by the architects and built by local craftspeople.
We redecorated and restored the whole of the main church, as well as laying a new stone floor in Derbyshire hard limestone.
The Guild Vicar envisioned a grand space that could nevertheless be intimate and welcoming. A completely new digital lighting scheme allows for many different atmospheres, whether intimate pools of light within a dark church, or large-scale events with theatrical lighting.
The main entrance in the tower had become obstructed with handrails and ad-hoc ramps. An open entry of arcing stone and gentle steps naturally encourages flows to all of the different spaces, while the new glass doors create a more inviting feeling. The photocollage shows the artwork above the doors, currently finished but not yet installed.
As designers, we challenged ourselves to show respect to the existing fabric of the church while avoiding quasi-historical pastiche. None of Wren’s original drawings for St Andrew’s have survived, but we understand it had fixed pews, a diamond patterned stone floor, and decoration in white and stone colour. We returned to the more neutral colour scheme, while opting to maintain Seely and Paget’s open floor with movable pews. This maintains flexibility for the church to supplement its income with concerts and other events.
The large open expanse of space became a canvas for several focal points of design. With a concept of “intensity within calm,” we created individual moments of design that were clearly contemporary, more elevated in their aesthetic impact, yet blended into the overall character of the existing space.
One of these was the Lady Chapel in the north aisle. We created sculptural brass screens and a large reredos also in brass. Taking inspiration from Wren’s early career in astronomy, our design evolves from a series of nine concentric rings, dissolving into a more organic shape of space towards the perimeter.
Another focal point was the setting for the font in the baptistery. Wren was known for his geometric proof of the hyperboloid geometry, and we developed this pattern into a stone paving within the baptistery chapel. An octagonal step gives pride of place to the font, and smaller stone plinths at the perimeter of the chapel create secondary points of focus for prayer.
Finally, we also developed designs for a new high altar and reredos at the east end of the church. We have designed and fabricated a tabernacle of gilded brass and a gold inlaid wooden panel behind the tabernacle and altar.
Client
St Andrew Holborn Church Guild Church Council
Location
London, UK
Year
2016-2023
Programme
Full interior refurbishment, new lighting, and new chapel designs
Status
Completed
Design Architect
DaeWha Kang Design
Project Lead
Laura Dinares Couto
Photography
Kyungsub Shin, Yuki Sugiura
Design Team
DaeWha Kang, Laura Dinares Couto, Weronika Widenska, Lawrence Lynch, Chiara Multari, Patricia de Osma, Weronika Czernikowska, Beth Rodway, Paulina Pawlata, Monika Byra, Patryk Kubica
Lighting and MEP Engineering
Atelier Ten
Structural Engineering
The Morton Partnership
Heritage Consultants
Donald Insall Associates
Cost Consultants, Procurement, and CDM
Greenwood Projects
General Contractor
Chichester Stoneworks
Specialist Fabrication
Ursae
Special Thanks
Bishop Jonathan Baker, John Booth, Sue Johns, Nick Hills, Father Mark Young
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
