Authors Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin describe the Ritz as "the
product of one of those near miraculous convergences of civilised patron
and architects and craftsmen of genius working together in complete
harmony both with each other and with the social and architectural
fashions of the day. The building has been regarded as a masterpiece
from the day it was finished..." Both of the architects,
Charles Mewès and Arthur J. Davis, were educated at the prestigious
École des Beaux-Arts
in Paris, and the education which they received is clear in the design
of the buildings, particularly the Renaissance influence, delivering "an
authentic fabric of traditional French classicism".
Mewès had previously designed the Hotel Ritz of Paris for Cesar in
1897-8, after which he met Arthur Davis, and began working together
preparing designs for the Grand Petit Palais in the
Paris Exhibition of 1900. Both architects worked on the plans for the London Ritz in 1904-5.
According to Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin the exterior is both
structurally and visually Franco-American in influence with little trace
of English architecture. For them the exterior "represents an evocative
confluence of various Parisian architectural traditions"; the
Piccadilly arcade echoes the arcaded ground floor in the Place Vendrome
and the Rue de Rivoli, the steep mansarded skyline on the Green Park
facade echoes
Hector Lefuel's work on the Pavillon de Flore of the
Louvre,
while the tall windows and wall panels of the facades resemble those of
Mewès's earlier work on a smaller building made as a home for
Jules Ferry on Rue Bayard.
The front of the London Ritz
Excavation for the hotel began by contractors Waring White Building
Co. Ltd in June 1904, and it was completed by 1 October 1905, and opened
the following May. The building progress was documented each month by
The Builder's Journal and Architectural Engineer,
and in one edition noted the difficulties of some of the aspects of
construction such as hoisting 20-ton 39 feet (12 m) steel joists in a
narrow building site.
The Architect and Contract Reporter noted
that the limited space did not allow for the storage of materials on
site. All mortar had to be mixed in the basement and the stone was
dressed "on a platform with a watertight roof over the footway".
[89] The red-brick foundations of the earlier
Walsingham House had to be blasted away to facilitate the foundations of the steel structure in concrete.
[m]
The total estimated cost was £345,227. 8s. 1d., with £102,000 going
to Messrs Waring and Gillow, £49,000 to French decorators and over
£15,000 to the English decorators. John P. Bishop and the Swedish-born Sven Bylander were consultant engineers during the building phase.
The facade on the Piccadilly side is roughly 231 feet (70 m), 115
feet (35 m) on the Arlington Street side, and 87 feet (27 m) on the
Green Park
side. The irregularity of the site presented initial problems for the
builders. Davis dealt with this by "brilliant perspective effects"
according to Binney, using curving walls to "cleverly conceal the
rapidly diminishing space at the back of the hotel". The purpose of the arcaded front was to provide more space for the bedrooms above. Expensive Norwegian granite is the material on ground floor, with Portland stone above it.
The steel frame of the building was made in Germany and is based on a
model made in the early 1880s in Chicago to increase fire resistance.
[n] It was erected by Messrs Potts & Co. of
Oxford Street.
Fireproofing of the walls were conducted by the Columbian Fireproofing
Company Ltd. of Pittsburgh and London, with steel-ribbed bars allowing
for ventilation, while remaining sound proof and free from vibration.
[94] The internal walls consist of "hollow, porous, terra-cotta blocks" covered with plaster, and the hotel's flooring was also made fireproof.
[89] At the corners of the pavilion roofs of the Ritz are large green copper lions, the emblem of the hotel.
Interior
The hotel was designed mainly by London and Paris based designers in the
Louis XVI style, which is consistent throughout, giving the hotel its "special atmosphere of perfect appropriateness and elegant restraint".
Marcus Binney describes the great suite of ground-floor rooms as "one
of the all-time masterpieces of hotel architecture" and compares it to a
royal palace with its "grand vistas, lofty proportions and sparkling
chandeliers".
Waring & Gallow were responsible for many of the fine design work
of the interiors The ground floor plan dated to 1906 illustrated a large
main restaurant overlooking the terrace and garden, a large central
Grand Gallery and Winter Garden, a circular vestibule beyond the
reception room, the Marie Antoinette Suite near the restaurant, and
numerous shops.
The Grill Room had its own entrance on the right side of the entrance
doors on Piccadilly, with a staircase leading down. The Grill Room was
on the eastern side, and the Banqueting Hall lay at the western end,
beneath the restaurant.
Today this is home to the Ritz Club. A wide vaulted corridor, the Long
Gallery, runs from the Arlington Street entrance on the east side to the
restaurant on the west side, with finely woven
Savonnerie carpets. Along it are several intricate horseshoe archways. A triangular-shaped staircase features in the building's southwest corner. The curving main staircase was built to allow women to make a "dramatic entrance and show off their gowns to best effect".
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