Through the Lens: Revisiting the Kentish Town Health Centre, Stirling Prize Shortlist 2009
(Years on, still standing. Still smiling.)
As an architectural photographer, you learn to spot which buildings are putting on a show—and which ones are quietly getting on with it.
Kentish Town Health Centre, photographed here in winter and summer 2009 for Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, and again in 2022, does both. It’s a building that looks like it might be about to move: white-rendered volumes stacked like a Jenga tower mid-shuffle, terraces carved into it like someone took a bite out of a minimalist wedding cake.
I first photographed the KTHC not long after it opened—when the paint was still drying, and every glazed surface was spotless enough to see your doubts in. Coming back years later for one of AHMM’s periodic reviews (you know, they do that, right? They like to check in, see how their hard work is holding up, they call it “Tim’s fun day out”), camera in hand again, I expected the usual suspects: flickering fluorescents, worn floors, a smell of damp ambition. Instead, I found- something better.
This is a building that’s lived in. Not just survived, but adapted, flexed, opened its arms to staff, patients, artists, dentists, podiatrists, and even the occasional confused visitor who thought it was an art gallery. (A fair mistake, honestly.)
The light still pours in through rooflights and clerestories like someone left the heavens on full beam. The terrazzo floors are holding their own. Even the Morag Myerscough graphics still pop. And while the café space remains an aspirational ghost, the courtyard tables suggest someone, somewhere, still believes.
Of course, there are quirks. There always are. A window open at night might trigger an alarm. A rooflight doesn’t always know when it’s raining. But, you know this kind of stuff happens everywhere, in an older building it becomes the character that you begrudgingly love. But these are the details. What matters is that this is a building that feels good. It’s full of life. Full of purpose. Full of stories.
Paul Monaghan will tell you it was inspired by Lubetkin’s Finsbury Health Centre and a high-tech civic centre in Chester-le-Street. I believe him. But to me, it feels like something rarer: a piece of public architecture that refuses to feel institutional. A space that believes people deserve better than grey corridors and plastic chairs.
The NHS isn’t known for architectural whimsy. But here it is. In green grilles and white render. In bridges and voids. In daylight and dignity.
It was a pleasure to photograph then. And it’s a pleasure now.
Still standing. Still smiling. We should build more like it.
