The Mound Stand, Lord's Cricket Ground (London, 1987) is, in effect, a modern reinterpretation of the traditional village green marquee. Since its completion in 1987 it has become an extraordinarily well-respected building, not only among architects and critics, but also the general public. It is one of the very few modern buildings to receive the public approval of Prince Charles.
David Jenkins argues that the secret of this spectacular pavilion's appeal lies in the success with which it has married together two technologies, the old and the new.
At the pavilion's lowest, earth-bound level there is a base consisting of massive, load-bearing brick arches. These incorporate fragments of an older brick structure, thereby rooting the new building not only to the ground, but also to the context of its past. Above that is an intermediate level of lighter steel framing, filled in with translucent glass blocks. Floating above all of these elements is an airy and precisely calculated fabric roof which recalls, but far exceeds in excitement and virtuosity, the metal canopies above the older surrounding pavilions.
This monograph gives an illustrated narrative account of how this outstanding work of architecture came about, analyses its performance, and documents the building by means of a full set of scaled technical drawings, thirty pages of large-format photographs (many in full colour), and a chronology and bibliography. It is, and will remain, the definitive archival record of Michael Hopkins's Mound Stand.
'Architecture In Detail' is a superbly photographed and technically informative series of monographs which embraces a broad spectrum of internationally renowned buildings, drawn predominantly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each sixty-page volume contains a lucid text by a respected author; a sequence of large-format, high-quality colour and black and white photographs; a comprehensive set of technical drawings and working details; and a complete bibliography and chronology, thus making these books the definitive work on the subject. They are essential purchases for enthusiasts, practitioners and students alike.
