Riffs on different themes

A set of appalling photographs, for which I can only apologise (though the light was utterly terrible), but they'll serve to illustrate a thought.

That was the London headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects, designed in 1932 by Grey Wornum in a sort of "Scandinavian" style (and with a decent cafe and a good bookshop inside, in case you're ever in this part of town). A couple of blocks away is another Wornum building, a town house:

It's this building, that he designed just four years later, that I find intriguing.

It takes the traditional Georgian style of so much of London and "modernises" it, streamlining and stripping away.

There's a simple mass to this building that, when you look at the parts, doesn't seem to add up to much. Yet it both fits in while gently asserting itself, making a statement of refined elegance and solidity.

I'm intrigued that the same architect designed two such very different buildings in such a short space of time. And I'm grateful for both of them.