The Royal College of Physicians, and John Dee

[major_clanger]

I've discovered a fresh bit of amazing London architecture: the Royal College of Physicians building next to Regent's Park.



I was there Friday afternoon and Saturday morning for a legal event (Chancery Bar Association winter conference) and was immediately impressed by the building. Its style seemed familiar and I wasn't at all surprised to find that it was by Denys Lasdun, architect of the Royal National Theatre and Keeling House (the latter being familiar to me via purplecthulhu).

Even more interestingly the RCP was about to open its exhibition on John Dee, so I was able to get a sneak peek.



I'll definitely be going back soon, both to see the full Dee exhibition and to further admire Lasdun's architecture.

Comments

[watervole]

That's the sort of building that tends to get used as backdrops by low-budget SF shows needing a good location.

[hano.livejournal.com]

Brilliant place, I ran some conferences there when I worked for BCS. I hope the food is as good as it was around 2004-7.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

The conference catering was indeed excellent.

[owlfish]

Boo, you are not helping me mange my lingering disappointment in not being able to get a to a food history evening/reception there last month.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I do not not (much) like Dr. Dee, but the display sounds interesting, as he was.

Would the grounds include the Chelsea Physics Garden? It might be worth a look around, though probably few (if any) of the plants date directly back to 1673 (which is Ancient by U. S. standards). When I worked for the Los Angeles County Arboretum, we occasionally requested seeds from their List (Arboreta routinely freely exchange seeds, as we did gleefully with Russian ones during The Cold War, despite having to go through some third country). That Physics Garden -- probab;y the first formal collection of medicinal plants in the Western word -- flattered me by its trust, in that they usually sent me only one seed (Ingroup reference: if you plant one of anything it will fail, but if you plant a lot they'll all thrive). The Royal Horticultural Society generally sent precisely 100 seeds, all of which usually germinated. (LASCA seem to have destroyed their pre-digital records, so my meticulously-kept percentage-of-germination records no longer exist) but I don't think I ever got anything from the Physics Garden to germinate or survive.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

The Chelsea Physic Garden is several miles away and was founded as part of the Society of Apothecaries although it's now run separately.

The RCP and SoA had a legal battle some 300 years ago (see the mention of the 'Rose Case' here) about the regulation of who could practise medicine, but they seem to have got on well for the last couple of centuries.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That chimney stack (or whatever it is) is interesting - the only other one I can think of that looks anything like that is on the so-called "battleship building" at Little Venice, which was built by the Great Western Railway and was actually supposed to look like one of their ferries. Is there any nautical connection in this case?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. There are a couple of monographs available on Lasdun's work both generally and as regards the RCP but copies aren't cheap!

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

That building is really beautiful. Thank you.