Russell Diplock & Associates

Arlington House, Margate

The Kingswest Centre, Brighton (now the Odeon Kingswest Cinema)

Russell Diplock & Associates was a British firm of architects, founded by Philip Russell Diplock.

They designed a three-storey office block for Amalgamated Dental Prosthetic Products in 1957 on an industrial estate between Addlestone and Weybridge in Surrey.^[1] In 1961, the Russell Diplock-designed Ariel Hotel was built at what is now London Heathrow Airport, "Britain’s first significant airport hotel".^[2]

They designed the 18-storey modernist Arlington House, Margate, which was built in 1964 by the contractors Bernard Sunley & Sons.^[3]

From 1959 they were engaged in major projects in Brighton for Brighton Borough Council. In that year they were chosen as designers for the Churchill Square shopping centre complex, fulfilling a redevelopment plan which had been debated since 1935. The complex consisted of an open shopping mall in the Brutalist style, a multi-storey car park, office blocks and an 18-storey block of flats called Chartwell Court; three similar-sized tower blocks had originally been planned. Churchill Square covered 11 acres (4.5 ha) between Western Road and the seafront, a prime central location previously occupied by terraced houses. It was completely redeveloped by another firm of architects in 1995–98.^[4] Next, as part of the same redevelopment scheme, the firm was responsible for the "intrusively aggressive" Kingswest Centre, built in 1965 and converted from a conference centre into a cinema in 1973. The bronzed aluminium roof has a distinctive jagged outline.^[5] Also in the Brutalist style, and making extensive use of unrelieved concrete, was the adjacent Brighton Centre—a new conference centre and performance venue. Russell Diplock & Associates designed this between 1974 and 1977. It was derided as "unlovely ... grim [and] monolithic" in the Pevsner Architectural Guides.^[5]

References

1. Nairn & Pevsner 1971, p. 91.
2. "Building of the month: Ariel Hotel, London Airport". c20society. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
3. "The Building". Arlingtonmargate. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
4. Antram & Pevsner 2013, p. 215.
5. Antram & Pevsner 2013, p. 219.

Bibliography

• Antram, Nicholas; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2013). Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove. The Buildings of England. London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18473-0.
• Nairn, Ian; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1971) [1962]. The Buildings of England: Surrey (2nd ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-300-09675-5.