Detail of the project ed. 2020

GAT­TI ROUTH RHODES – BETH­NAL GREEN MIS­SION CHURCH

Design­er	Richard Gat­ti
Loca­tion	305 Cam­bridge Heath Rd, E2 9LH, Lon­don, UK
Design Team	Archi­tect (Gat­ti Routh Rhodes) — Tom Routh, Ste­fanie Rhodes, Richard Gatti Stained Glass — Designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith
Year	2019
Pho­to credits	Johan­na Kli­er — Exte­ri­or 01 & Inte­ri­or 03, 05 Jack Hob­house — Exte­ri­or 02, 03, 04, 05 & Inte­ri­or 01, 02, 04

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Jesus says ‘Come to me, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). These words are inscribed on the wall of Beth­nal Green Mis­sion Church, and exem­pli­fy the spir­it of the church – both as con­gre­ga­tion and as build­ing. The com­mu­ni­ty was estab­lished in 1868 as a response to pover­ty and depri­va­tion – the church came lat­er. This prin­ci­ple of com­mu­ni­ty and ser­vice first is at the cen­tre of how the church runs, and how the build­ing is designed.

In the midst of a hous­ing cri­sis in Lon­don, build­ing hous­ing above a church not only embeds the church with­in the phys­i­cal city, but cru­cial­ly funds the faith and com­mu­ni­ty spaces below. This pro­vides a new mod­el for how church­es can grow and devel­op with the scarce resources with­in inner city communities.

Exter­nal­ly, the build­ing appears as an ele­gant apart­ment block, its civic nature defined by dou­ble height slot win­dows set with con­tem­po­rary stained glass and pre­cast con­crete por­tals that frame bronze lat­tice­work gates. The stained glass is Pol­ish cylin­der glass, hand blown and hand cut, so full of blem­ish­es and imper­fec­tions, then resin bound to a stan­dard dou­ble glazed unit. Where the panes meet, these inac­cu­ra­cies appear as a bright white light shin­ing into the space, in con­trast to the dark shad­ows of tra­di­tion­al lead­ed glass.

Inter­nal­ly, the church sits — both lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly — at the heart of the build­ing; a still, qui­et cen­tre away from the noise of the city. This sacred space leach­es into the rest of the build­ing: the deep dia­grid con­crete beams pass into the adjoin­ing spaces, whilst the cleresto­ries share light with the adja­cent office and com­mu­ni­ty spaces. The vol­ume of com­mu­ni­ty halls; a set of ‘L’ shaped spaces designed to scoop light and air from above, is defined by the pres­ence of the church. A com­­mu­ni­­ty-run café medi­ates between the church and the street, soft­en­ing the thresh­old, and help­ing local peo­ple to access the ser­vices and rest promised within.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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