Pools, Baths and Lidos

NOTES: This substantial steel-framed house on a twenty-acre sloping site was designed by Bronek Katz R. Vaughan & partners for Mr Fred Kobler, managing director of Grand Hotels (Mayfair, London). An assistant architect of the practice, John Heath, was responsible for the interior design.

SOURCE: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Vedute di Roma (Rome, [1747?-1788]), pl. 116 NOTES: The Baths of Diocletian were built in 298-306; the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli occupies the central hall of those Baths. Michelangelo designed the conversion in 1563-1566 for Pius IV, but Vanvitelli altered the church in 1749.

SOURCE: Builder, vol. 35, 1877 Dec. 8, p. 1224

SOURCE: Hermann Muthesius. Die Englische Baukunst der Gegenwart (Leipzig: Cosmos, 1900), pl. 23

SOURCE: Paolo Antonio Paoli, Avanzi delle antichita esistenti a Pozzuoli Cuma e Baja (Naples: 1768), pl. 54 NOTES: The ruins of the Terme di Baia represent the remains of a Roman imperial palace (1st century BC-3rd century AD) where the so-called Tempio di Mercurio formed part of the baths. Its dome is thought to be the oldest example of a large-scale dome, pre-dating the Pantheon.

SOURCE: James Thomson. Retreats: a series of designs, consisting of plans and elevations for cottages, villas, and ornamental buildings (London, 1827), pl. 38

NOTES: This and another drawing of the Baths of Caracalla were made in connection with four lectures on Roman architecture given by Aitchison at the Royal Academy in January or February 1889.

NOTES: Charles Fox, a pupil of Louis de Soissons, was commissioned in 1930 to re-design Lansdowne House, designed by Robert Adam in 1762-68, for use as a private club. He remodelled the mansion to incorporate social rooms and a sports area, including a swimming pool, squash courts, fencing Salle, caf+â-® and bar in the basement. Sir Charles Allom, whose firm Allom, White was responsible for the fitting out of the great Cunard liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, was commissioned to decorate the Club in the 'Arte Moderne' style. It opened as a club on 1st May 1935.

NOTES: This purpose-built school was erected on the site of Rickmansworth Park house, which was demolished in 1926. The design for the new boarding and day school was put out to tender in an architectural competition. It was won by J L Denman, a Freemason himself, whose design incorporated Masonic symbolism, most noticeably in the semi-circle of eight houses, each of which having an H formation.