I have worked with Denys Lasdun, I liked him, generous, thoughtful, precise, but I had not photographed the Institute of Education at 20 Bedford Way before this.
It matters to acknowledge that. Familiarity with the architect does not translate into familiarity with the building. If anything, it sharpens the responsibility. Lasdun’s work is exacting. It relies on discipline, lots of discipline, a kind of rigour that you rarely encounter. You approach it knowing that what appears heavy is often carefully measured, and that misreading it, visually or spatially, is easy.
The building carries that weight. Not just materially, but in how it has been used and altered over time. Like many buildings of its period, it had accumulated layers, some necessary, some expedient, that gradually obscured its logic. The question for any refurbishment is whether that logic can be recovered without turning the building into an artefact.
The recent work by Perkins&Will is measured in that respect. It does not attempt to resolve the building into a single, fixed state. Instead, it clarifies where possible. The concrete frame is more legible. Circulation has been opened and, importantly, occupied. What were once residual spaces now support use. That shift is significant.
The new entrance on Bedford Way is a precise intervention. Its proportions align with the existing façade, but it avoids imitation. It addresses practical requirements; access, security, environmental performance, without disrupting the underlying order of the original building. That balance is difficult to achieve, especially in a listed structure.
From a photographer’s perspective, the building resists simplification. It is not resolved in a single view. The work requires a slower reading. Understanding how spaces connect, how light enters, how people move through it now compared to how it may have been intended to function. The presence of occupation is critical. Without it, the building risks being read as purely formal.
Retaining and adapting a building of this scale is no longer simply a conservation decision; it is an environmental one. This project demonstrates that performance can be improved without discarding what is already there.
What is most evident on return is that the building is in use in a different way. Space has been reallocated, not expanded. Circulation has become social space. Academic work is less fixed to individual rooms and more distributed. These are not superficial changes; they alter how the building is understood day to day.
Lasdun’s work was never static. It was structured, but it anticipated change through use. The success of this project lies in extending that capacity. Not by preserving the building unchanged, but by allowing it to operate again with clarity.
