For the last couple of years there’s been a thing in London called ‘Open House’ where lots of building are opened up to us plebs to gawk and otherwise go “ooh”
I have always found out about it the Monday after when people have said to me “I went to such and such it was great… where did you go?” To which I reply something about top gear and pants.
But this year, still blissfully uninformed, I went along to one thanks to my lovely other half who had done the reading up on it.
We went the “German Gymnasium” at Kings Cross, a gym built in 18something or other to house German gymnasts. quite why they needed to be housed in Kings Cross I never quite got to the bottom of.
The building itself was equally disappointing and amazing, I was expecting some museum based 19th Century German gym, with leather ropes and long skirts. But instead, aside from some pictures and wood it was all modern inside, with models of the Kings Cross redevelopment.
The main bit as you walk in was a massive model, like what Doc Brown makes in Back To The Future, only with no toy car, or, if you hail from an architectural background, it was an architectural model, like what you would have seen lots of, from your background.
There were buttons to press and things lit up and a big perspex model of the tube station with different coloured tubes going underneath.
Then we heard talk of a tour, we’d just missed one and were umming and ahhing whether to wait for the next. I am so glad we did. The tour we missed was done by a lady who looked like she knew what she was talking about. What we got was so much better.
A chap called Bill Green walked us around the new St. Pancras station, he said he’d been a teacher for one year and lost several children on an outing, so he’d appreciate it if we were more careful.
he was exactly what people should be like, enthusiastic, passionate, funny, slightly unkempt and utterly wonderful.
He’d been given lots of notes and pictures to show us, but instead we walked around and he told us his views of the architecture of new and old (he likes both), the history of real ale (he likes it) and a thousand other things besides.
We also learnt about the redevelopment, the perils of owning a listed building, why the steel is painted light blue and how disappointing the worlds longest champagne bar is.
It was fascinating, awe-inspiring, wonderful, funny and the best way to spend a sunday.
Bill Green, we salute you.