I am often to be heard talking about how surprising it is that many of the marvelous examples of Art Deco interwar architectutre along Old and New Bond Streets are not listed buildings. This, I assumed/ hoped was because the kind of companies who trade along this street were aware and proud of the beautiful buildings in which their products were being sold and they simply looked after the heritage. Indeed, one only has to look at the excellent revamp by Victoria's Secret at the northern end of New Bond Street, where many of the modern shopfittings installed this past decade were cleverly created to appear as if they have been there since the mid-30s. The outside of that building is stunning, never mind that gorgeous glass staircase inside.
But this is about what I believe is criminal damage/wanton destruction at 25 New Bond St, on the corner of Conduit Street, where beautiful, possibly unique, curved windows at ground level that meandered in and out of the supporting columns as a wavy curtain of glass, are no longer there.
Until 2020 this was a branch of Russell & Bromley who made excellent use of the display space, see here. When R&B moved out, the windows were individually covered in panels as shown in my pic above from Feb2021. Phew, I thought, they'll be fine.
Balenciaga took over the building and installed bigger bright green hoardings at street level shown here in June2021. I continued to naively assume that this was to protect the lovely windows. I mean, who would remove what surely must be some of the best curved glass in London?
But last weekend, whilst walking past with one of my tour groups, I stopped in my tracks, exclaimed, "No!" and then had to explain to the group why I was so shocked, even though this was not the subject matter of that tour!
The gorgeous curves and undulations are long gone. The windows are now flat and rectangular and the columns have been boxed in. Balenciaga are so proud of their new boxy space that on their website here they call this 'a treat' – I call it a 'blandification' and I think Villanelle, that character in BBC's Killing Eve who has been pictured sporting Balenciaga's expensive boots, would call this renovation "BORE-RING!"
It's amazing that Balenciaga didn't go the whole hog and install chickenshop-style UPVC doors and windows as this is barely a step up from that. I am so upset. But you understood that paragraphs ago(!). And, to add insult to injury, although I was convinced that I had taken some good photos of those curved windows for inclusion into one of my online talks about Art Deco buildings, I now cannot find them. Let's hope, it's just a simple case of not naming the files.
