Green light for new housing complex that keeps a bit of Bethnal Green’s old Victorian look

You’d hardly believe it but this is the 21st century “new look” that’s planned for the ageing Bethnal Green Road market.

How the building looks today... with its original 150-year-old brickwork. Picture: Google - Credit: Google

It all looks rather the same—by design actually.

An east London leading architect has just got planning permission from Tower Hamlets Council for a new three-storey block of flats with shops on the ground floor.

But he’s keeping the Victorian brickwork and refurbishing the 150-year-old facade while adding modern extensions along Viaduct Street and facing Weavers Field park at the back.

“We chose to retain the Victorian facades as it’s in Bethnal Green’s historic market area,” Gordon Shigley explained.

“The new shop fronts respect the proportions of the period architecture along Bethnal Green Road. The new facade facing Weavers Field is designed to extend the proportions of the original Victorian architecture and respond to the more domestic scale of the town houses in Viaduct Place.”

His architectural practice in London Fields was commissioned by EKS property developers for the 4,500sq ft mixed housing and commercial complex. The redevelopment is being built from modern London yellow and reddish bricks with red stone cills for the facades.