Walking south down Oxford’s Mansfield Road, it is hard not to be stopped in one’s tracks by the porter’s lodge of the Gradel Quadrangles, built for New College [1]. Opened only in April this year, and still awaiting their finishing touches, they are the newest addition to a city that contains arguably the country’s grandest suite of urban buildings but also its most curious.
Seen as it is approached, obliquely, the bulging arch of the low-winged porters’ lodge contrasts vividly with the strict, Perpendicular lines of Thomas Worthington’s (rather uninspiring) chapel at Harris Manchester that stands behind it [2]. Looked at from the other side of the street, the lodge is dominated by a tower that looms ominously above it, bringing to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo [3].
A walk around the…
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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, July 2024