Park Road, London

Freewheeling forms

The Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner was the creator of Anthroposophy, a movement that attempted to link and reconcile science and mysticism. His work touched many fields, from medicine to education, agriculture to architecture. Although Steiner himself died in 1925, his legacy remains in many forms – his mutlitudinous writings, schools founded on his principles, and the work of the Anthroposophical society, which has its headquarters in Dornach, Switzerland in a building, the Goetheanum, designed by Steiner himself.

The United Kingdom Anthroposophical Society is based at Rudolf Steiner House in Park Road, London, a stone’s throw from Regent’s Park. Here they hold classes, run a library, put on theatrical productions, and host exhibitions and other events. Begun in the 1920s and extended in the following decade, the building was designed by Montague Wheeler and features curves, artfully placed windows, and other details that set it apart from the buildings around it. I don’t know anything about Montague Wheeler, except that he was himself involved in the Anthroposophical movement.

Coming across this building unawares, one might suspect that a distant echo of Art Nouveau has survived here in northwest London. But the architecture must also be influenced by the more outré curves of Steiner’s Goetheanum, which Wheeler must have studied, bringing a more restrained version of Steiner’s expressionism to the terraces of London. The interior, recently refurbished, has its less restrained moments, though. I must return and look at the extraordinary twisting staircase, the organic, plant-like forms of which seem to chime well with Steiner’s pioneering work in biodynamic agriculture. English buildings, like Steiner’s voluminous works, are inexhaustible.