Chelsea Harbour Living

There are four storeys, starting with a raised ground level. The upper floors of Carlyle Court appear to be supported by white columns at this ground level, although they are probably more decorative than structural. The ground floor rooms are set back from the columns, leaving room for a small terrace in front. French windows open onto the terrace and shelter is provided by the overhang of the floors above. There are large terracotta urns with bay trees standing on some of the raised ground balconies. Since they are all the same, I would guess they were supplied with the flats. Carlyle Court has three upper floors below the parapet wall. Some (but not all) first and second floors have balconies consisting of a metal structure which is topped by a with a metal canopy just below the third floor windows. French windows open onto these balconies. At third floor level the flats have ordinary windows without balconies. Above the parapet there is a further row of windows set into a pitched roof. The terraces of Carlyle Court at ground floor level and the balconies all share the same kind of protective metal railings which are painted black and provide an attractive contrast to the light-coloured concrete of the facade.

The front of the Carlyle Court faces onto the turning area in front of the entrance of Conrad Hotel, but also has a diagonal view of the Marina. The building then takes an obtuse angle to the left, to provide a short face looking directly onto the Marina. You then go up some steps from the Marina area, between some Chelsea Harbour urns with shaped fir trees, to reach the other long side of Carlyle Court on Thames Avenue. There is a fifth side at the back almost looking over the river which continues the columns at raised ground level but has no terraces. There is another main entrance into Carlyle Court in the centre of this flank of the building.

In post-modernist tradition, Carlyle Court is asymmetrical. At the Quadrangle end, above the cornice, there is a huge broken pediment and an equally huge window in the pitched roof behind it. This is not matched at the Marina end. Many features appear throughout Carlyle Court , such as balconies, the metal railings, and pediments. They are not distributed equally, but you don’t really notice. The only jarring element is that on most sides there are a series of blind windows which run up the building and culminate in a blind concrete box in the pitched roof. I assume this conceals service ducts. Overall Carlyle Court is an attractive building which looks and feels comfortably familiar.

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