Lasdun’s Modernist Masterpiece in Regent’s Park

A modernist masterpiece, award-winning and Grade I listed, this year the RCP building by Regent’s Park celebrates 60 years since it was opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

Designed by British architect Sir Denys Lasdun (1914 - 2001) it provoked strong reactions when it was first revealed.

‘This was an elegant, gracious street and now they slap us in the face with this thing.’ – Neighbour of the RCP at Regent’s park
‘Sausage factory – or architecture of international standing?’ – Press

Lasdun was chosen out of several architects, and challenged by the RCP to create a modern building that reflected the RCP’s future, while showcasing its past and matching its surroundings. Lasdun designed a modernist building drawing inspiration from the structure of the human body with classical elements, dramatic interiors and space to celebrate our ceremony and history. It is one of the few post-war buildings to be awarded Grade I listed status. In 1992 Lasdun was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Trustees Medal in recognition of his work at the RCP, considered to be ‘the best architecture of its time anywhere in the world’.

‘You can go and see it, and the building, if it has anything to say, will have to speak for itself.’ – Sir Denys Lasdun

Exterior

The entrance doorway of the building is overshadowed by a large jutting box extending beyond the entrance steps, perched on slender yet structurally integral columns. The building’s core material is poured concrete. On the upper layers this forms clean-cut boxes and lines clad in delicate creamy-white porcelain tiles pierced by arrow-slit windows in the corners and along one side. The lower level includes the low humped exterior of the Wolfson Lecture Theatre clad in blue-grey engineering brick and creating surprising curves to contrast with the straight lines above. Facing out into the Garden are large glazed panels with the box of the Censors Room punching through the glass part way up.

Lasdun Hall

The Lasdun Hall shows the influence of Le Corbusier on Lasdun with his use of ‘free forms, floating in space’. Light floods the Hall from the enormous windows looking out over St Andrew’s Place. The marble hall was created for ceremonial processions which wind up the magnificent squared spiral of the flying staircase.

Censors’ Room

The Censors’ Room is lined with 17th century oak panelling originally from the College’s third home in Warwick Lane. Lasdun considered the Censors’ Room to be the ‘heart’ of the RCP and placed it in the centre of the building. Censor’s historically were key officers who would examine who was qualified to be a member of the RCP and have a license to practice medicine, and punish physicians operating without a license. The room today is still the starting point for many ceremonial occasions.

Council Chamber

The Council Chamber is part of Lasdun’s 1995-96 extension. It can be flooded with natural light from an ingenious hidden circle of skylights around the central dome. Lasdun described it as one of only three ‘entirely satisfactory spaces’ he created.

Wolfson Theatre

The Wolfson Theatre is the larger of the RCP’s two lecture theatres. Of note are the curved booths, clad in African hardwood, the gently curving textured concrete walls and the tiered slabs of the ceiling – best seen from the stage.

Dorchester Library

Lasdun described the Dorchester Library as the ‘brain’ of the building. There has always been a Library in the RCP and over the centuries fellows have donated books to build one of the finest collections outside Oxford and Cambridge. Today the Heritage Library contains over 50,000 printed items dating from 1471 to the present day. Over 20,000 of these are considered rare books printed pre-1900, many of which are on display in the Dorchester Library.

Osler Room

The Osler Room is the RCP’s formal function and dining room. It rises two storeys high (mirroring the Dorchester library) and features one of the few working hydraulic walls in buildings of this period.

Medicinal Garden

The green space to the side of the building was intended to echo the universities of Cambridge and Oxford as a place of contemplation and educated conversation. Today the garden is unique in that almost every one of the 1000+ species of plant here has a link to medicine. The myriad of stories they tell come from diverse cultures, different countries and from every age in recorded history.