HIX THINX: Why does history matter to hotels?
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At HIX 2024, our signature installation project will see five leading design studios reinterpret Islington’s iconic Business Design Centre as a hotel, truly immersing our guests in the hospitality interior experience. Underpinning this project is a detailed historical report on the venue and surrounding area researched and compiled by our event partner for 2024 Historic Productions Ltd – a heritage consultancy specialised in connecting properties to best-in-class historians to chart the story of the building, its occupants and its context in the surrounding area and community.
Here we talk to Historic Productions Ltd founder James Hooper and architectural historian Juliet Learmouth about the HIX x BDC installation project, and how designers, owners and operators can benefit from knowing their heritage.
What’s your background, and how did Historic Productions come to be?
JH: My background is in archaeology, with a master's in anthropology from Cambridge University. While I was studying I got involved with the Global Heritage Fund – an international heritage conservancy who ran projects and developed tours for people with an interest in World Heritage Sites and the ability to support their conservation efforts with donations. This is where I first came across intersection between the hospitality sector and cultural heritage. There are a great number of hotels whose bottom line depends quite extensively on their proximity to cultural heritage sites, but we found those places often didn't have the time and resources to really connect with them. I formed Historic Productions on the basis that each building and each hotel community is a centre of cultural creation in and of itself. If you take the skills and lessons of the Heritage sector in terms of valuing and telling the story of heritage and its preservation, then apply these skills to individual hotels, you give owners and operators excellent content and the tools to become responsible stewards of their own heritage, and by extension the culture that surrounds them.
JL: I studied a masters in British architectural history at the Courtauld Institute then went on to do a PhD at Birkbeck University focusing on the relationship between women and the London townhouse in the eighteenth century. One of the key elements of this was not just to look at architecture, but the social history of the building. I was interested in how the lives of those women were shaped by the buildings they lived in, and how in turn they shaped the urban environment, so it’s a perfect fit for the kind of work Historic Productions does.
What kind of services do you offer?
JH: We apply the skills and techniques of historians to hotels and similar venues, and produce detailed socio-cultural historic reports on both the building and its place in the surrounding area. The research is also fully referenced, with every single piece of information linking to the source material so that our clients can explore further. Essentially, it’s a multi-purpose tool that can be referenced throughout the project, from preplanning applications, breaking ground and all the way up to it being a part of the guest experience – we're now turning several pieces of our research which began as advisory research for architects into guest-facing coffee table books, for example.
What does this bring to hotel projects?
JH: When restoring a listed building, there is a legal requirement from the architectural position in terms of satisfying planning regulations, and of course these are often very focused on architectural significance. There will be some social and cultural consideration, but not to a degree that it improves the performance of contractors or employees down the line. As such, these regulations work to separate the physical architectural element from the cultural or social history, so our value is to reconnect these principles at the very outset of the project, ensuring that the cultural heritage of the building in its widest sense is understood and available to all the contractors, employees and ultimately, the guests.
In terms of marketing, we’ve found there’s a huge benefit when campaigns are supported by a properly researched document created by a specialist historian, especially one who understands the aims of your company in the future. Beyond this, a rigorous piece of historical research is incredibly useful when you're putting together planning or pre-planning applications, when you're making architectural and branding decisions, and continues being useful throughout the life of hotels, whether they are renovations or newbuilds. Our reasoning is that you would engage a best-in-class architect or plumber to do those jobs, so why not engage a best-in-class historian to develop this fundamental aspect of your brand identity and narrative?
How do you collaborate with hotel clients?
JH: Firstly, we identify what they want to achieve in the future, as a company and owner. Then we approach the huge amount of history behind them from that perspective. This allows us to create a research document that is themed, organised and relevant to their needs. We populate this document with deep research and referenced materials, leading to the final document that allows them to make some sense of what is often an incredibly wide span of history that sits behind a lot of these buildings.
What hotel projects have you worked with?
JH: One long-running project we’re very proud of is our work at Cambridge House, which has been a real 360-degree project for us. We’ve been gathering physical and digital archive materials, turning these into a full social and cultural history of the building, which Juliet has led. We've also supported this with on-site film and photography, recording key moments in the building’s new life. By the end we’ll have produced a written, graphic and film-based archive of the project – from how it once was to the point it opens its doors.
JL: Cambridge House is a fabulous building. it's mostly known as the home of the In & Out club, a role it served between 1865 and 1999. For this project we began with research around the early history of the building. It was built in the mid eighteenth century to display the 2nd Earl of Egremont’s priceless art collection and as a space for entertaining high-ranking royal and political visitors. But I think what makes this building so interesting is the ever-changing nature of its history, because it’s had so many owners and you can see how the space was repurposed to project the status and image of each successive occupant. The Duke of Cambridge – uncle to Queen Victoria – lived there in the mid 19th century, and then it passed to Lord Palmerston, the prime minister, who lived there with his wife, a very well-known high society hostess and, strangely, almost certainly an illegitimate granddaughter of Lord Egremont. It’s these kinds of narratives we love digging into.
There's also a lot of material we discovered about the actual conversion of the building into a clubhouse. Like some of the reactions you get today when you hear a well-loved building is being turned into a hotel, people of the time might have shuddered at the idea of Lady Palmerston's drawing room being changed into a smoking room. But I think exploring that history can be very helpful for future designers in understanding that the building is in fact highly versatile, and has always been in a state of flux. Lastly, we looked at the building in the context of its neighbourhood, which is something we're doing at the business design centre as well.
How can designers specifically benefit from this information?
JH: With Cambridge House, Juliet actually discovered the table of contents from 1763, which was developed as part of the probate process for the widow of the first owner, Lord Egremont. It listed every room of the original house along with the contents of each, down to the colour of the wallpaper and all the materials used. What we were able to do is overlay this information onto an interactive map of the new hotel with the exact items of furniture, paintings and design details and their locations. Designers can use this as a means to understand the different periods of the building’s past. It’s an academically-led investigation that would not be available to them without a specialist involved, and our specialism is really to provide them with a filter between the huge amount of history that could be daunting to tackle, and curate a selection of relevant information they can draw from.
What key themes do you think our HIX installation designers will draw from the BDC report?
JL: Obviously there are visual elements of the building like the wonderful ornamental ironwork and the original stained glass which the designers might want to play on, but I think there are some wider themes that might resonate too. Entertainment is a big one; whether you’re thinking about the venue’s past uses as a circus hall with trapeze artists and tightrope walkers, or before that as the site of the huge livestock fairs the Royal Agricultural Hall would host.
The BDC and the Royal Agricultural Hall before it have been so important to the people of Islington. We can see that in the attempts to preserve the building, and to save it from demolition, which is what nearly happened in the 1970s. It was known as the Aggie, and it was a local landmark that local residents viewed with great affection because it symbolises something more than just an entertainment venue. It almost embodies the spirit of Islington – a place where people from different classes and backgrounds congregate.
Alternatively, designers may choose to single out some of the vibrant characters associated with the neighbourhood. These include musical hall performers, such as George Leybourne, (or ‘Champagne Charlie’ as he was known’), or the artist, Walter Sickert, and his wife Thérèse Lessore, who were both regular visitors to the centre, which really brings it to life.
JH: The BDC was conceived as a versatile space. It was never intended to solely host livestock shows, with the idea being to regularly sublet it out. So, where it might never have been a hotel, I think that its inherent versatility makes it a very interesting building to think about through a hospitality lens. It’s also important to note that the report doesn’t just cover the high life, because there’s also a rich bohemian and working history of the area, as well as elements of criminality and the hardships of London life through the ages. I think it’s important we don’t shy away from these more difficult elements of history, because by researching that side of things you get a more complete understanding of the property and its heritage, meaning you can build a more informed and responsible attitude towards it - rather than burying our heads in the sand!
Learn more about Historic Productions here.