Joining us for lunch last Friday, Gillian Darley mentioned her new book about Ian Nairn - 'author of Nairn's London, the OUTRAGE series in the AR and more - you have probably never heard of him'. If you hadn't clearly others have as you can pay £264.94 on Amazon for a copy. I picked up mine for a pound in Hitchin in 1985 and found it an eye-opening prompt to take me exploring bits of London I might have missed. The overriding message which holds as true today as in 1966 is it doesn't matter what a building is like as long as it's good. Hence his inclusion of Owen Luder's newly completed Brutalist eyesore Eros House in Catford - 'This most craggy and uncompromising of new London buildings turns out to be full of firm gentleness' - alongside The Paragon at Blackheath - 'perfect urbanity meeting perfect rurality head-on' - alongside S.S.Teulon's St Mark's Silvertown - 'an architectural imagination the size of Blake's - it must be kept'. It was and is now the home of Brick Lane Music Hall.
Incidentally, the freehold for Eros House is up for sale for £10,000.
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