ALWYCH LONDON
The Aldwych Hotel: Edwardian Monumentality in London Original Architecture by Charles Mewès & Arthur Davis (1907)
Located in the heart of London, the iconic Aldwych building—originally designed in 1907 by the acclaimed architects Charles Mewès and Arthur Davis—stands as a triumph of Edwardian architecture with distinct Parisian influences. Documenting this historic, wedge-shaped infrastructure required a precise visual strategy to balance its classical heritage with its contemporary operational reality as a premium hotel space.
Approaching this monumental structure necessitated a strict two-scale structural philosophy. At the macro level, the framing registers the imposing curvature of the facade and its commanding relationship with the dense, continuous flow of the London streetscape. At the micro scale, the lens isolates the sophisticated tectonic details, the elegant proportions of the interiors, and the exact geometric symmetry inherent in Mewès and Davis’s original design.
Navigating the active, bustling environment of a functioning luxury hotel demanded quick-capture camera techniques to freeze the interaction of natural light and spatial volume without artificially staging or disrupting the authenticity of the site. By prioritizing objective, two-dimensional perspective lines over passive architectural romanticism, this photographic series delivers a rigorous examination of how a century-old classic continues to anchor its urban context with timeless structural integrity.
