Revival for the Thames' Missing Link

Proposal by Blank Architects

THREE architectural firms have just been asked to develop plans for the last piece of the riverside jigsaw upriver from the City. Known as the “Missing Link”, this stretch of the river lies between the planned developments of the Embassy Quarter (plus Battersea Power Station) and the South Bank, in other words between Chelsea and Lambeth Bridge. Centred on what was the old Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, it has a major drawback with the hideous traffic of Vauxhall Cross, and the bleak riverside Albert Embankment backed by railway arches.

   The initiative has been steered through by Chris Law, Public Realm and Development Director for Vauxhall One, the Lambeth Business Improvement District. Among local professionals who have been involved is Stephen Crisp, head gardener to the US Embassy, which is moving into Nine Elms, but Crisp’s job also requires looking after the 12.5-acre garden at Winfield House, the US ambassador’s Regent’s Park residence.

Pleasure gardens

Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

The Victorian Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens have, of course, been long gone, and the housing estates that were built over them were bombed flat in the war, to be grassed over as Spring Gardens. Under the undulating parkland, the developers are expecting to find some surprises from the rubble that was so quickly hidden. One survivor is The Tea House Theatre, once the Queen Anne, a Victorian pub recently restored by Hal and Conn Iggulden authors of The Dangerous Book for Boys.

   Vauxhall today seems a long way from a pleasure garden, but designs by more than 100 architectural firms from 21 countries produced an astonishing array of ideas, which included islands, piers, walkways and elevated highways, as well as new pleasure gardens, all designed to link the unwieldy elements together. The railway is a particular challenge, though the arches are already attracting art and business organisations forced out of the arches at London Bridge and elsewhere as railway companies begin to see the value of their assets.  

Three finalists

The architects' colourful proposals, from the fundamental to the fanciful, were pinned up along a route from Spring Gardens and under the railway arches, along a route that led around the quiet backstreets of a former industrial buildings, past Pedlars Park and Lambeth High Street Recreation Ground to the Garden Museum, where a final three were selected by RIBA president Angela Brady, aided by Dan Pearson.

   Of the three practices chosen to receive funds to develop their plans, two were British, and one from Moscow – Blank Architects, whose design is pictured above.