Cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see.

Modernist Delights is a blog about modernist and brutalist architecture. Find out more.

Duncan Street, Islington, 2025

Three-storey brick building with shops at street level, including a hair salon, Double Knot, and Kall kwik. Stairs lead to entrances. Leafless tree branches overhang above. A School road sign is visible. Windows reflect trees. The pavement is mostly empty.

Time to confess my secret fondness for split-level buildings. They remind me of such structures in the homeland, where shops may be on ground and first floors, the latter accessed by an external walkway, streets-in-the-sky style.

The rear of this row of buildings has garages on the ground floor with three floors above, where the front only has two, seemingly with no change in elevation. I assumed the flats, internally, would also feature some split-level malarkey, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Instead, a Rightmove listing for one of the flats reveals another fun feature – top floor flats feature private courtyards in the centre of the building.

Notice, too, the brick benches built in between sets of steps.

48-56 Orsman Road, Hackney, London, 2025

A large, white and brown industrial building with many grid-like windows stands beside a modern brown building. Trees and bushes are in the foreground, and metal stairs run up the building’s side. The sky is clear and blue.

As far as I can tell, this was formerly a warehouse for the British Museum, but it doesn’t appear to have any current use. It would make beautiful, expensive flats with all those windows.

Padangle House, Hackney, London, 2025

A red-brick office building has many large windows, a glass stairwell, and signs for Topps Tiles. There’s a construction scaffold on the right. The sky is clear and blue.

Padangle House was originally constructed in the first half of the twentieth century as a textile factory and was converted into large artists’ studios in the 1980’s to respond to the growing demand from London’s creative community.”

MIDA Architecture

Padangle House is currently being renovated, with additional floors of housing being added on top of the existing structure.

Apollo Theatre / O2 Apollo Manchester (Hyde Road entrance), 2025

A derelict, white Art Deco building with boarded-up windows and graffiti on its facade. Four cars are parked in front. A street sign and lamp post are visible on the pavement. The sky is partly cloudy.

The side entrance to the O2 Apollo Manchester, the main entrance featuring a glazed white terracotta façade on Stockport Road. Why two entrances? UKmender on Cinema Treasures explains:

…the entrance on Hyde Road was a common ploy used where many cinemas were located at busy corners. Though the main frontage is on Stockport Road, it was originally thought advantageous for the building to also have a presence on Hyde Road, directly opposite the popular Manchester Hippodrome theatre.

(…)

Both entrances were, originally, similarly decorated and both contained box-offices. The Hyde Road entrance also gave access to the integral cafe and ballroom. Some attempts were made to run it as a separate venue but it is currently abandoned.

Notice, too, the barely visible Club signage on the left side of the building.