David Chipperfield plans to convert US Embassy into Mayfair hotel
07/04/2016.
[LON] UK
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
David Chipperfield beats Foster and KPF to convert Eero Saarinen-designed US Embassy in London to hotel.
Rendering, access to new Hotel Mayfair by David Chipperfield Architects.
Outside rendering, new Hotel Mayfair by David Chipperfield Architects.
The Chancery Building at 30 Grosvenor Square was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in the 1950s.
Philadelphia architect KieranTimberlake designed the new US embassy, which is nearing completion in Nine Elms.
Philadelphia architect KieranTimberlake designed the new US embassy, which is nearing completion in Nine Elms.
David Chipperfield Architects has been officially selected to convert the US Embassy near London's Grosvenor Square into a "world-class" 137-room hotel, after the building's current occupants relocate.
With the embassy set to move to a new home in Nine Elms, the Chancery Building at 30 Grosvenor Square will be completely transformed into a hotel with five restaurants, six shops, a spa and a ballroom.
David Chipperfield Architects was appointed to the project by developer Qatari Diar, from a shortlist that reportedly included Foster + Partners and KPF.
"Our design proposals protect and respect the significant architectural and structural characteristics of Eero Saarinen's design, with a focus on restoring and enhancing this unique building to secure its long-term future at the heart of Mayfair, we have studied the building's design and its history as well as its surroundings to deliver an architecturally and socially coherent proposal, which will transform this purpose-built embassy into a world-class hotel." said David Chipperfield.
Completed in 1960, the Chancery Building was Britain's first purpose-built embassy. Saarinen worked on the building while he was designing the JFK airport terminal in New York, which is also now being converted into a hotel.
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David Chipperfield
David Chipperfield was born in London in 1953 and studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London before working at the practices of Douglas Stephen, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster.
In 1985 he founded David Chipperfield Architects, which today has over 300 staff at its offices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai.
David Chipperfield has taught and held conferences in Europe and the United States and has received honorary degrees from the universities of Kingston and Kent.
He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and an honorary fellow of both the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). In 2009 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 2010 he received a knighthood for services to architecture in the UK and Germany. In 2011 he received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture and in 2013 the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, while in 2021 he was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in recognition of a lifetime’s work.
In 2012 he curated the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.
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