Tszheichoi

The Queen's Tower sits at the heart of Imperial College London's South Kensington Campus. Towering at 287 feet, it dominates the skyline of Albertropolis. Access to the tower is generally not open to the public, but today, we had the rare chance of scaling this iconic neo-renaissance architecture.

A Brief Introduction of the Queen's Tower & Albertropolis

The Queen's Tower, along with the rest of the original Imperial Institute, was designed by T.E. Collect in the late 1880s. The tower was the centre piece of the complex, with smaller buildings extending towards both east and west. The structure was part of a larger master development, known as the Albertropolis, which was dedicated to the advancements of arts and sciences and housed research institutes, galleries and more.

The tower was aligned with the Albert Memorial, Royal Albert Hall, Royal College of Music and the Natural History Museum to form a beautiful north-south axis through Albertropolis. In fact, strong symmetry and proportion was a running theme of neo-renaissance architecture. Looking at the Queen's Tower, it is not hard to notice it's rotational symmetry and the symmetric geometric within each of it's four faces. This in turn echoes with the scientific observations of the order of nature, an elegant manifestation of the dedication of the Imperial Institute to sciences.

However, as the Imperial College campus expanded in the 1960s, the entirety of the original complex was to be demolished. Fortunately, after a huge public out-cry and a campaign, the Queen's Tower was saved. As it's surrounding buildings had to come down, the tower was structurally reenforced. As we make our way up the tower, we will see tell-tale signs of this part of it's history. 

Today, the Queen's Tower sits at the east side of the Queen's Lawn, surrounded by buildings that came decades later. This includes the Central Library Building, Sheffield Building, Skempton Building (1963) and the contemporary Sir Alexander Fleming Building (1998) by Foster + Partners. 

Entrance & Lower Level Viewing Platform

The entrance to the Queen's Tower is guarded by two stone lions which originally sat at the entrance of the Imperial Institute. 

While the Queen's Tower has a rather grand entrance which it deserves, I don't think it's surrounding buildings built in the 1960s pay much respect to it. I am particularly disappointed by the Sheffield Building which is just a few steps in front of the tower entrance. Instead of using this excellent opportunity to do something interesting architecturally, it decided to greet it with a dull, generic facade. On top of that, the Sheffield Building and almost every single building erected in the 1960s did not conform to the aforementioned axis of symmetry. I understand space efficiency and cost were of higher priority than architectural elegance, but I think, with a careful master plan, the campus could both fulfil technical and financial requirements while paying homage to the site's heritage at the same time.

Anyways, upon entering the Queen's Tower, there was a plaque dedicated to the restoration project completed in the 1960s. The plaque reads

"This Tower, the central feature of the Imperial Institute Building which stood hereabouts from 1893 to 1966, has been retained for the nation in the custody of the Imperial College of Science and Technology. It was isolated, strengthened and re-embellished between 1996 and 1968 as part of the expansion programme of the college"

Indeed, architecture is a timeless record of a country's history and an ominous reminder of our past. It is something everyone should treasure.

There was a giant spiral staircase that led to a height of roughly 2-3 stories. While there were medallions along the staircase wall, celebrating famous scientists, this ground level chamber was rather dull and uninteresting.

Upon closer examination, all of the scientists on display are chemist for some reason. This includes Henry Cavendish who is famous for his work in electrolysis, Humphry Davy who is famous for his discovery of sodium and potassium and more.

The lower level viewing platform consisted of a wide exterior corridor circling around the tower. From here, you can view the surrounding college from a slightly higher vantage point, as well as gaze up the tower from up close. It also serves as a neat performance platform for the Queen's Lawn, which is just in front of the Queen's Tower.

Here are some of the views of the Queen's Tower from the lower level viewing platform.

And looking down from the platform to the surrounding Imperial College buildings also afforded some nice views.

The lower viewing platform also had a series of stone sculptures and engravings. I suspect these were moved from various part of the original Imperial Institute.

Surrounding the four sides of the low level viewing platform was a set of stained glasses, also known as Plimmer stained glass windows as they originally came from Henry George Plimmer's music room at his home in St. John's Wood. These stained glasses appropriately depicted figures that represent arts, music and literature.

The Main Ascend

Access beyond the lower level viewing platform was hard as one must climb a series of caged staircase and stone-enclosed stairwell. According to Wikipedia, there are 325 steps in total.

As seen from the schematic section of the tower that I drew according to my memory (and imagination), the tower's structural support lies on the surrounding walls. The body of the tower is separated to a few large chambers with the staircase attached to the side. The bell chamber sits at the top of the stack, which is then topped by the upper level viewing platform and a giant copper dome.

The first set of caged stairs led to a spacious and, in someway, other-worldly chamber. This dimly lit chamber had a raw red-brick finishing, giving it a damped, cold atmosphere. 

One should pay extra attention to the brick-work pattern here. As seen from the photo below, there seemed to be arches that span across the wall. 

In fact, this was a tell-tale sign the Queen's Tower's legacy of being part of the original Imperial Institute. Looking at the schematic sketch below, it is not hard to imagine there were passageway that goes through the tower. When the surrounding structures were taken down, these archways were sealed off using similar bricks, hence resulting in this rather out-of-place pattern.

These trap doors situated at the centre of the roof can be opened to lift bells up and down from the top chamber for maintenance purposes. 

A door led to the bottom of an enclosed stone staircase. To be honest, the journey up this section takes forever, particularly because it is enclosed. The reason why it takes so long is because we are moving up multiple levels all at once. Our guide told us that the levels that this stone staircase goes through were originally used to store water tank. This make sense as the tower was connected to other buildings in the originally design, and where else better to put a water tank than the tall Queen's Tower? As such, the Queen's Tower used to double as a water tower!

The staircase is very narrow with tight turns. A huge warning for people who are claustrophobic!

We arrived at a rather open area with high ceiling and openings.

With iron trusses spanning the interior, it feels like part of an old factory to me. They are probably supporting structure for the water tank, however, I am not entire sure about that.

Here is a view out of one of the openings on the east face of the tower. We can see Skempton Building in the foreground, as well as the London Eye and Shard in the vague background.

The ceiling is lined with beautiful wooden planks. Again, we can see the trap door used for transporting bells. 

The next chamber up is for bell ringing. At first sight, it might look like a gymnasium, but each rope is in fact linked to a large bell on the level above, which we will see later. 

Bells are rung on Royal Anniversaries between 1 and 2 pm. To operate the bells, each rope has to be pulled and released by a person. As such, a group of people has to jump up and down in perfect timing to produce the bell tone. It is quite a performance. 

Another spiral staircase led us up a level into the chamber that houses the bells, the belfry. It was dimly lit with a vague smell of lubricant. The bells are connected to the rope below through a series of pulleys. Notice the openings, two on each face, which allow the sound of the bells propagate outward to the exterior. 

There are a total of 10 bells, named after Alexandra, the Princess of Wales. The bells were a gift to the Prince of Wales from Mrs. Elizabeth M. Millar of Australia in 1892. Each bell is separately named after members of the Royal families. To see the bell in action, I refer you to the YouTube clip below:

Also in the belfry was an interesting architectural feature. From the outside, the Queens Tower broadly speaking looks like a rectangular box with square cross section all the way to the top, where it changes to a cylinder and eventually a dome. The structural transition from the rectangular body to the circular top takes place here, where we can clearly see the tapering and some diagonal shallow arches. 

Just before we move up again to the next level, we turned back and had a look at the enclosed rock staircase that has brought us all the way up here. 

Upper Level Viewing Platform

And here we are at the upper level viewing platform. This is a semi-open space with, again, red brick walls. There is an opening on each of the four faces which lead to an open balcony where you can take in the epic view of London from the unique vantage point of South Kensington. 

From the balcony, we can see the iconic column/spire of the Queen's Tower up close. Also note the damage to the rock work due to weathering. 

Just as we thought we have reached to the top, there was yet another staircase, leading up to the inside of the copper dome. 

The copper dome attic rather dim and damp. There was also a strong pigeon smell permeating the space. Though, the wooden structural support was quite impressive.

There was also an old telephone lying at the centre of the room. This is suppose to be an emergency phone to the security office. So... yeah. Hope that no one will have to use it.

There were engravings along the rim of the inside of the dome, recognising the people who have contributed to this incredible tower.

Here are some further miscellaneous photos from the attic for your enjoyment.

The View of London Skyline from the Top

We will now try to make our way around the upper level viewing gallery and look at the beautiful skyline of the metropolis. Just to orientate yourself, here is a map of the location of the Queen's Tower.

North: Royal Albert Hall, Albert Memorial, Hyde park

We start off from the North which is dominated by the greenery of Hyde Park. This also provide a unique perspective into the axis of symmetry mentioned at the beginning of this article. Notice how the spire of the Albert Memorial (golden in colour) sits exactly on top of the dome of the Royal Albert Hall. This attention to detail and precision of positioning really astonishes me. 

North East: Electrical Engineering Building, Hyde Park, BT Tower

Looking north east, we see a different view, with the Electrical Engineering Building in the foreground. The Electrical Engineering Building is the highest building on campus if you do not count the Queen's Tower as a building (which is fair).

East: Central London, Faculty Building

Looking east, no one can miss the incredible London skyline. It is interesting to note that the cityscape is dominated by simple geometrical shape: the circular London Eye, the triangular Shard, the wedged-shape 'Walkie-Talkie' and the rectangular Big Ben.

Looking downward from the east direction is Imperial College's iconic 'blue cube', the Faculty Building. The diagonal skyline opening towards the left illuminates the walkway below using natural light 

South: SAF, Natural History Museum, Battersea Power Station

Looking directly south, we see the SAF building in the foreground, the Natural History Museum in the middle and even the Battersea Power Station in the background.

South West: SAF, Chelsea

Here is a view towards south west.

Colour Palette of Albertropolis

At this point, I should make a quick note about the architectural colour palette of the Albertropolis. When this area was originally built, there were very specific design guide line, and thus resulting in a high degree of visual cohesion. Of course, this is not true nowadays. Walking around Albertropolis, it is not hard to realise that red brick and grey Portland stone dominate the colour palette of buildings. For example, the original Chemistry Building carries a distinctive red-white pattern.

The guide line states that red bricks should be used as the main colour, with Portland stone used as decorative grey.

Now, the Queen's Tower also conform to this colour palette. But strangely, it is in reverse. Portland Stone is used as the main material, with red bricks acting as decorative red. 

This visual style does carry through to some contemporary buildings in the area, with Foster + Partner's SAF building being the most notable example. Notice how grey-tone facade is mixed with strips of red. I think this is a brilliant and subtle homage to the original Albertropolis.

North West: Blackett, Huxley, High Street Kensington

We then move to north west where we see the beloved Blackett Laboratory, with the Huxley Building on it's side.

And that concludes our tour around the Queen's Tower. As we followed the original stairs down, it was quite hard to believe that all these were built more than a century ago. It must be a very impressive piece of architecture, but also an engineering marvel back in those days. When you are inside the tower, it strangely felt like you were transported to another world. While Imperial College London is all about cutting edge research and pushing the boundary of the technology and engineering, it is interesting to see, sitting right at it's heart, is another side of the story, a story that was build with red bricks and grey stone; a story full of rich architectural history; a story that was part of the root of Imperial College and the entire nation.

Queen's Tower sits at the heart of Imperial College London's South Kensington Campus. Towering at 287 feet, it dominates the skyline of Albertropolis. Access to the tower is generally not open to the public, but today, we had the rare chance of scaling this iconic neo-renaissance architecture.

A Brief Introduction of the Queen's Tower & Albertropolis

The Queen's Tower, along with the rest of the original Imperial Institute, was designed by T.E. Collect in the late 1880s. The tower was the centre piece of the complex, with smaller buildings extending towards both east and west. The structure was part of a larger master development, known as the Albertropolis, which was dedicated to the advancements of arts and sciences and housed research institutes, galleries and more.

The tower was aligned with the Albert Memorial, Royal Albert Hall, Royal College of Music and the Natural History Museum to form a beautiful north-south axis through Albertropolis. In fact, strong symmetry and proportion was a running theme of neo-renaissance architecture. Looking at the Queen's Tower, it is not hard to notice it's rotational symmetry and the symmetric geometric within each of it's four faces. This in turn echoes with the scientific observations of the order of nature, an elegant manifestation of the dedication of the Imperial Institute to sciences.

However, as the Imperial College campus expanded in the 1960s, the entirety of the original complex was to be demolished. Fortunately, after a huge public out-cry and a campaign, the Queen's Tower was saved. As it's surrounding buildings had to come down, the tower was structurally reenforced. As we make our way up the tower, we will see tell-tale signs of this part of it's history. 

Today, the Queen's Tower sits at the east side of the Queen's Lawn, surrounded by buildings that came decades later. This includes the Central Library Building, Sheffield Building, Skempton Building (1963) and the contemporary Sir Alexander Fleming Building (1998) by Foster + Partners. 

Entrance & Lower Level Viewing Platform

The entrance to the Queen's Tower is guarded by two stone lions which originally sat at the entrance of the Imperial Institute. 

While the Queen's Tower has a rather grand entrance which it deserves, I don't think it's surrounding buildings built in the 1960s pay much respect to it. I am particularly disappointed by the Sheffield Building which is just a few steps in front of the tower entrance. Instead of using this excellent opportunity to do something interesting architecturally, it decided to greet it with a dull, generic facade. On top of that, the Sheffield Building and almost every single building erected in the 1960s did not conform to the aforementioned axis of symmetry. I understand space efficiency and cost were of higher priority than architectural elegance, but I think, with a careful master plan, the campus could both fulfil technical and financial requirements while paying homage to the site's heritage at the same time.

Anyways, upon entering the Queen's Tower, there was a plaque dedicated to the restoration project completed in the 1960s. The plaque reads

"This Tower, the central feature of the Imperial Institute Building which stood hereabouts from 1893 to 1966, has been retained for the nation in the custody of the Imperial College of Science and Technology. It was isolated, strengthened and re-embellished between 1996 and 1968 as part of the expansion programme of the college"

Indeed, architecture is a timeless record of a country's history and an ominous reminder of our past. It is something everyone should treasure.

There was a giant spiral staircase that led to a height of roughly 2-3 stories. While there were medallions along the staircase wall, celebrating famous scientists, this ground level chamber was rather dull and uninteresting.

Upon closer examination, all of the scientists on display are chemist for some reason. This includes Henry Cavendish who is famous for his work in electrolysis, Humphry Davy who is famous for his discovery of sodium and potassium and more.

The lower level viewing platform consisted of a wide exterior corridor circling around the tower. From here, you can view the surrounding college from a slightly higher vantage point, as well as gaze up the tower from up close. It also serves as a neat performance platform for the Queen's Lawn, which is just in front of the Queen's Tower.

Here are some of the views of the Queen's Tower from the lower level viewing platform.

And looking down from the platform to the surrounding Imperial College buildings also afforded some nice views.

The lower viewing platform also had a series of stone sculptures and engravings. I suspect these were moved from various part of the original Imperial Institute.

Surrounding the four sides of the low level viewing platform was a set of stained glasses, also known as Plimmer stained glass windows as they originally came from Henry George Plimmer's music room at his home in St. John's Wood. These stained glasses appropriately depicted figures that represent arts, music and literature.

The Main Ascend

Access beyond the lower level viewing platform was hard as one must climb a series of caged staircase and stone-enclosed stairwell. According to Wikipedia, there are 325 steps in total.

As seen from the schematic section of the tower that I drew according to my memory (and imagination), the tower's structural support lies on the surrounding walls. The body of the tower is separated to a few large chambers with the staircase attached to the side. The bell chamber sits at the top of the stack, which is then topped by the upper level viewing platform and a giant copper dome.

The first set of caged stairs led to a spacious and, in someway, other-worldly chamber. This dimly lit chamber had a raw red-brick finishing, giving it a damped, cold atmosphere. 

One should pay extra attention to the brick-work pattern here. As seen from the photo below, there seemed to be arches that span across the wall. 

In fact, this was a tell-tale sign the Queen's Tower's legacy of being part of the original Imperial Institute. Looking at the schematic sketch below, it is not hard to imagine there were passageway that goes through the tower. When the surrounding structures were taken down, these archways were sealed off using similar bricks, hence resulting in this rather out-of-place pattern.

These trap doors situated at the centre of the roof can be opened to lift bells up and down from the top chamber for maintenance purposes. 

A door led to the bottom of an enclosed stone staircase. To be honest, the journey up this section takes forever, particularly because it is enclosed. The reason why it takes so long is because we are moving up multiple levels all at once. Our guide told us that the levels that this stone staircase goes through were originally used to store water tank. This make sense as the tower was connected to other buildings in the originally design, and where else better to put a water tank than the tall Queen's Tower? As such, the Queen's Tower used to double as a water tower!

The staircase is very narrow with tight turns. A huge warning for people who are claustrophobic!

We arrived at a rather open area with high ceiling and openings.

With iron trusses spanning the interior, it feels like part of an old factory to me. They are probably supporting structure for the water tank, however, I am not entire sure about that.

Here is a view out of one of the openings on the east face of the tower. We can see Skempton Building in the foreground, as well as the London Eye and Shard in the vague background.

The ceiling is lined with beautiful wooden planks. Again, we can see the trap door used for transporting bells. 

The next chamber up is for bell ringing. At first sight, it might look like a gymnasium, but each rope is in fact linked to a large bell on the level above, which we will see later. 

Bells are rung on Royal Anniversaries between 1 and 2 pm. To operate the bells, each rope has to be pulled and released by a person. As such, a group of people has to jump up and down in perfect timing to produce the bell tone. It is quite a performance. 

Another spiral staircase led us up a level into the chamber that houses the bells, the belfry. It was dimly lit with a vague smell of lubricant. The bells are connected to the rope below through a series of pulleys. Notice the openings, two on each face, which allow the sound of the bells propagate outward to the exterior. 

There are a total of 10 bells, named after Alexandra, the Princess of Wales. The bells were a gift to the Prince of Wales from Mrs. Elizabeth M. Millar of Australia in 1892. Each bell is separately named after members of the Royal families. To see the bell in action, I refer you to the YouTube clip below:

Also in the belfry was an interesting architectural feature. From the outside, the Queens Tower broadly speaking looks like a rectangular box with square cross section all the way to the top, where it changes to a cylinder and eventually a dome. The structural transition from the rectangular body to the circular top takes place here, where we can clearly see the tapering and some diagonal shallow arches. 

Just before we move up again to the next level, we turned back and had a look at the enclosed rock staircase that has brought us all the way up here. 

Upper Level Viewing Platform

And here we are at the upper level viewing platform. This is a semi-open space with, again, red brick walls. There is an opening on each of the four faces which lead to an open balcony where you can take in the epic view of London from the unique vantage point of South Kensington. 

From the balcony, we can see the iconic column/spire of the Queen's Tower up close. Also note the damage to the rock work due to weathering. 

Just as we thought we have reached to the top, there was yet another staircase, leading up to the inside of the copper dome. 

The copper dome attic rather dim and damp. There was also a strong pigeon smell permeating the space. Though, the wooden structural support was quite impressive.

There was also an old telephone lying at the centre of the room. This is suppose to be an emergency phone to the security office. So... yeah. Hope that no one will have to use it.

There were engravings along the rim of the inside of the dome, recognising the people who have contributed to this incredible tower.

Here are some further miscellaneous photos from the attic for your enjoyment.

The View of London Skyline from the Top

We will now try to make our way around the upper level viewing gallery and look at the beautiful skyline of the metropolis. Just to orientate yourself, here is a map of the location of the Queen's Tower.

North: Royal Albert Hall, Albert Memorial, Hyde park

We start off from the North which is dominated by the greenery of Hyde Park. This also provide a unique perspective into the axis of symmetry mentioned at the beginning of this article. Notice how the spire of the Albert Memorial (golden in colour) sits exactly on top of the dome of the Royal Albert Hall. This attention to detail and precision of positioning really astonishes me. 

North East: Electrical Engineering Building, Hyde Park, BT Tower

Looking north east, we see a different view, with the Electrical Engineering Building in the foreground. The Electrical Engineering Building is the highest building on campus if you do not count the Queen's Tower as a building (which is fair).

East: Central London, Faculty Building

Looking east, no one can miss the incredible London skyline. It is interesting to note that the cityscape is dominated by simple geometrical shape: the circular London Eye, the triangular Shard, the wedged-shape 'Walkie-Talkie' and the rectangular Big Ben.

Looking downward from the east direction is Imperial College's iconic 'blue cube', the Faculty Building. The diagonal skyline opening towards the left illuminates the walkway below using natural light 

South: SAF, Natural History Museum, Battersea Power Station

Looking directly south, we see the SAF building in the foreground, the Natural History Museum in the middle and even the Battersea Power Station in the background.

South West: SAF, Chelsea

Here is a view towards south west.

Colour Palette of Albertropolis

At this point, I should make a quick note about the architectural colour palette of the Albertropolis. When this area was originally built, there were very specific design guide line, and thus resulting in a high degree of visual cohesion. Of course, this is not true nowadays. Walking around Albertropolis, it is not hard to realise that red brick and grey Portland stone dominate the colour palette of buildings. For example, the original Chemistry Building carries a distinctive red-white pattern.

The guide line states that red bricks should be used as the main colour, with Portland stone used as decorative grey.

Now, the Queen's Tower also conform to this colour palette. But strangely, it is in reverse. Portland Stone is used as the main material, with red bricks acting as decorative red. 

This visual style does carry through to some contemporary buildings in the area, with Foster + Partner's SAF building being the most notable example. Notice how grey-tone facade is mixed with strips of red. I think this is a brilliant and subtle homage to the original Albertropolis.

North West: Blackett, Huxley, High Street Kensington

We then move to north west where we see the beloved Blackett Laboratory, with the Huxley Building on it's side.

And that concludes our tour around the Queen's Tower. As we followed the original stairs down, it was quite hard to believe that all these were built more than a century ago. It must be a very impressive piece of architecture, but also an engineering marvel back in those days. When you are inside the tower, it strangely felt like you were transported to another world. While Imperial College London is all about cutting edge research and pushing the boundary of the technology and engineering, it is interesting to see, sitting right at it's heart, is another side of the story, a story that was build with red bricks and grey stone; a story full of rich architectural history; a story that was part of the root of Imperial College and the entire nation.

Google map has just updated it's satellite images for the Shanghai region and, along with it, an impressive construction update on Shanghai Disneyland. These satellite images, I believe, were taken back in Nov 2013.  

In many ways, we can consider many modern science advancements as a reexamination of the notion of nothingness.

Newtonian mechanics emphasise on the fact that nothing comes out of nothing. This is pretty much the essence of the laws of conservation of energy, momentum and matter.

Then, comes quantum mechanics, which reinterprets nothingness as merely the superposition of something with the negative of something. Relativity explores the idea that light can travel in nothing. The list goes on and on.

The Heathrow Pod at Terminal 5 reminds me of something from Disney's Tomorrow Land. But this thing is real. 

Every pod carries up to 5 passengers. The pod is driver-less and is controlled by a centralised computer system. Passengers board the pod and specify the destination. The system will then coordinates with all the traffic and drives the passenger to the destination automatically.

Note that the pods are also track-less and sensor around the lower perimeter of the pod calculates the pod's distance from the edge constantly and determine if any change of course is needed. 

This is a wonderful wing roller coaster, completed with crocks crew, inline twist and zero gravity roll.