Summary
Henley Royal Regatta Headquarters, designed in 1984-1986 by the Terry Farrell Partnership.
Reasons for Designation
The Henley Royal Regatta Headquarters building, Henley-on-Thames is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* a festive, yet stately, civic building in the post-modern classical idiom, combining a reinterpretation of the temple form with Thames boathouses and other types of riverside architecture;
* a significant scheme by Terry Farrell, a leading British architect and exponent of Post-Modernism.
Historic interest:
* the administrative headquarters of the Henley Royal Regatta, an important sporting event in the country’s history endowed with royal patronage;
* a rare example of a permanent building entirely devoted to an annual sporting fixture.
Group value:
* with a number of listed buildings on the opposite bank of the river and with Henley Bridge (Grade I), and with The Grandstand for Henley Royal Regatta (Grade II).
History
Post-Modernism, a movement and a style prevalent in architecture between about 1975 and 1990, is defined in terms of its relationship with modern architecture. Post-Modernist architecture is characterised by its plurality; engagement with urban context and setting, reference to older architectural traditions and use of metaphor and symbolism. As a formal language it has affinities with mannerism (unexpected exaggeration, distortions of classical scale and proportion) and the spatial sophistication of Baroque architecture. Post-Modernism accepts the technology of industrialised society but expresses it in more diverse ways than the machine imagery of the contemporary High-Tech style.
The origins of the style are found in the United States, notably in the work of Robert Venturi and Charles Moore which combined aspects of their country’s traditions (ranging from the C19 Shingle Style to Las Vegas) with the knowing irony of pop art. A parallel European stream combined an abstracted classicism or a revival of 1930s rationalism with renewed interest in the continental city and its building types. In England, the American and European idioms converged in the late 1970s to produce works by architects of international significance, including James Stirling, and distinctive voices unique to Britain such as John Outram. The 1980s revival of the British economy was manifested in major urban projects by Terry Farrell and others in London, while practices such as CZWG devised striking imagery for commercial and residential developments in Docklands and elsewhere.
Henley Regatta was established in 1839, initially by the Mayor and people of Henley-on-Thames, but received royal patronage from 1851, becoming known as the Royal Regatta thereafter. The event has been successively expanded in length, to three days in 1886, four days in 1906 and five days in 1986, and in 1913 a grandstand was constructed upriver, at the point of the finishing line, to designs by Frederick G Sainsbury (Grade II). In the early 1980s Farrell was commissioned to design a replacement for the Regatta’s previous premises. The site, adjoining the town’s C18 road bridge, was previously occupied by a disused public house, the Carpenters’ Arms.
The design for the new building took the form of a classical building, while referencing river-side buildings along the Thames and elsewhere. The symbolism of the Regatta was incorporated by means of the crossed oars of the balustrades, and the HRR monogram which crowns the pediment. The building, which was contracted to cost £675,000 was completed in 18 months by the local contractor JM Jones & Sons and the building was opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II, the regatta’s patron, in April 1986. The building won several awards, including the Financial Times Architectural Award in 1987, the Civic Trust Award 1988 and the RIBA Award 1988. The Regatta later commissioned Terry Farrell Partnership to design a balcony and staircase for Fawley Temple, James Wyatt’s 1771 eyecatcher on Temple Island, at the start of the course.
Since commissioning the design, the regatta has expanded to an extra day in length and the permanent staff who work in the building (as of 2017) has grown from five to ten in number. In 2018 the committee room was altered by the addition of an office at first floor level, designed by John Letherland.
Details
Henley Royal Regatta Headquarters, designed in 1984-1986 by the Terry Farrell Partnership with Peter Brett as structural engineers.
MATERIALS: red brick exterior walls, laid in English bond, with stone dressings to the lower storey, cement rendered walls to the upper storey, and slate roofs.
PLAN: the building is of three storeys and faces the river. Running the full width of the building at river level is an internal wet dock and storage space placed at basement level. This forms a wide platform for the narrower principal offices, reception and committee room at first floor level and a flat, which was originally intended as the living quarters of the Secretary, in the roof space. The principal storey at ground floor level is accessed at the centre of the north side of the building and the layout at ground floor level is near-symmetrical about both axes, with an enfilade of rooms along the south side. An entrance lobby gives access to a central reception room which leads to the galleried, double-height committee room on the western, river side. The interior was designed to allow for different types and intensities of use from minimum staff levels in the winter to intense activity in the weeks leading up to the event.
EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys and is integrated with the raised basement platform, which is trapezoidal in plan and rises to the height of the adjacent road bridge. The structure incorporates a terrace with steps which lead down from ground floor level to the river walkway.
The western, river elevation is symmetrical, of three bays and alludes to a classical temple front rising above a platform. The brick retaining wall of the platform is battered and incorporates the rusticated lower storey of the building with gated entrances to the wet dock and adjoining storage areas. The wall is detailed in patterned and rusticated brickwork with banded stone dressings. The gates are of mild steel. The corner buttresses have alternating flush bands of brick and stone and are topped by metal urns in a loosely classical style and the terrace has a brick balustrade. A recessed central bay rises through the building and incorporates the entrance to the wet dock and an elaborate opening and the curved balcony of the committee room.
The ground floor is plastered and painted throughout the building in two shades of terracotta with a red cornice and abstracted triglyphs in bright blue. The central bay window is navy blue in colour and is framed by a set of abstract columns and capitals in the post-modern style with disks attached, which are redolent of paterae. The central balcony is bowed and its metal railings incorporate a motif of crossed oars. The gable is treated as an arcuated pediment, which mirrors a Serlian window seen on a neighbouring property to the south, and may also draw influence from classical buildings such as the Adam brother’s Royal Society of Arts building in the Adelphi, London. The Serlian window with a relieving arch which is filled with fan-shaped and fluted radiating lines is here translated to a large, arched opening within which a semicircular, lead-covered arch projects and bears upon a pair of columns and forms the centre piece to a metal screen which radiates outwards. At the roof ridge is the Regatta’s ‘HRR’ monogram and fixed above the eaves are a pair of floodlights housed in blue metal casings which allude to the acroteria of Greek temple architecture. They illuminate the monogram and a central flagpole.
The entrance (north) elevation is of one-and-a-half- storeys and five bays. A central entrance with glazed panels is surmounted by a dormer window and flanked by glazed bays of equal width. Into the brick terrace wall are incorporated a dedication stone and bronze plaques commemorating the building’s RIBA and Civic Trust Awards. A stone plaque records the public house which formerly stood on the site, along with a re-set date stone bearing the letters ‘IC 1714’.
The rear (east) elevation is more modest, in keeping with the domestic buildings around it. It has a Serlian window at the centre of an open pediment. The central bay is in grey, in contrast to the outer bays which continue the colour scheme of the other elevations.
The south elevation is similar to the northern entrance front. The dormer window gives access to a balcony set below the slope of the roof.
INTERIOR: the principal rooms are carpeted and decorated in two-shades of blue, with sky blue window and door frames and navy blue vertical elements. The committee room is a compact but imposing, double-height space decorated in sky blue and mid blue. The former staircase, incorporating a bookcase, which led up to the first-floor flat, was removed in 2018 and an office has been built to the rear of the committee room. The suite of five rooms along the southern side were originally arranged in an enfilade with connecting doors which allowed the working space to be expanded. New bookshelves and cupboard space has been built in these rooms, including across the door frames. Windows, radiators and sanitary ware in the kitchen and bathrooms have been replaced, together with door furniture across the building. The original patterned carpeting has been retained.
