Albert Hall Mansions

Detail, highly ornamented asymmetrical brick facade with oriel bay windows, shaped gables and stone dressing; During the last quarter of the 19th century both urban growth and the increase in population meant that more imaginative housing concepts were going to be needed if the middle and upper classes were to maintain a pied-à-terre in the capital. The traditional London town house was becoming increasingly expensive to maintain. The Albert Hall Mansions were the second mansion flats in England, designed by Richard Norman Shaw in 1876. Because this was of a new type, risks were reduced as much as possible, each block was planned as a separate project with the building of each separate part contingent on the successful occupation of every flat in the previous block. The gamble paid off and the scheme was a success. The style is the Queen Anne Revival style, whose sources are not Gothic or Tudor but mid-17th-century brick houses under Dutch influence and the William and Mary style. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 7/16/2012