THE EAGLE Articles
have vivid memories of taking their theses to be bound at Stoakley’s Bookbinders, not least because of the overwhelming sense of relief (and hopefully achievement) which comes from completing three or more years’ full-time work on a single, largely solitary project.
ARTICLES
The buildings that now make up Corfield Court date from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries and it is a testament to the design of the architects – van Heyningen and Haward – that the new £9 million courtyard feels coherent, elegant and visually striking (at least in the eyes of this non-specialist), rather than simply being a hotchpotch of old buildings whose continued existence owed more to their Grade II listed status than any intrinsic merit or utility. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges faced by the architects was satisfying the incredibly stringent requirements which the city planners placed on the project, not only before work began, but during construction itself. Before the contractors moved in, a comprehensive report, or Conservation Plan, of nearly 200 pages was compiled which gave a detailed history of the Site. Each building was classified A, B, C or D, depending on its architectural and historical significance, a practice which is increasingly common in projects of this kind. Although no buildings were ‘A’ rated, that is, of international significance, virtually all of them were classified as B (nationally significant, equivalent to Grade II* listed) or C (locally significant, equivalent to Grade II listed). Only the Music Shop (built in the 1820s as a fruiterer’s shop), the Old School Room (built
The former Bookbinders, converted to a Fellow’s set