Croydon and the Postmodern 2

Nestled amongst the towering forest of office blocks and hotels along the leafy path that is the Wellesley Rd you can find some of the most venturesome architecture in Croydon, limbs of the urban environment that have taken on an appearance and aesthetic of their own accord. The monstrous authoritative twins that are Lunar House and Apollo House directly on the Wellesley Rd, which operate as the headquarters of the UK Border Agency, house such an example of Postmodern architectural experimentation.

For the most part architectural inspiration is not plucked out of the air at random but is found through local contextual influence whether it be materiality, traditions or history, however when the decision was made in the late nineteen-sixties to construct Lunar House and Apollo House the primary source of inspiration happened to be the Apollo 11 moon landing. An incredibly bold and unquestionably peculiar direction to take considering the whole 'Space Race' was a cold war playground game between the US and USSR that clearly had nothing to do with Croydon. Nevertheless during this rather ruthless sixties development period, Croydon quite literally was to have a mesmerising architectural experiment crash-land in the middle of town.

Hovering above the ground on what appears to be a concrete cake-stand is a three-story hexagonal extension to the main office building of Apollo House. In what could be seen as a deliberate juxtaposition to the towering right-angled verticality of the office tower this little piece of architecture delicately hovers above street level mimicking what can only be the presence of a UFO. Yet even with this architectures odd shape and position to its context it merges into its urban business landscape with majestic efficiency, hardly noticed as the public go about hopelessly attempting the pass over Wellesley Rd or weave their way through the confusing back streets of East Croydon. So another architecture and another fade to black, but with this example I can not help but feel this is the actual goal all along, not commonly observed, but a lovely piece of architecture to look at.



tW