Criterion Theatre and Restaurant - Piccadilly, London, UK
N 51° 30.590 W 000° 08.062
30U E 698850 N 5710416
A magnificent building on the south side of Piccadilly Circus.
Waymark Code: WMC4Q9
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 07/25/2011
Views: 21
Restaurant, theatre and former hotel built 1870-74 by Thomas Verity.
Painted stone, slate roofs. Rich eclectic classicism owing more than a little to Charles Garnier. Three storeys with lofty 2nd floor and dormered mansard and pavilion roof. Original block with 3-window wide centre slightly recessed from one-window wide pedimented pavilion-wings.
Ground floor has channelled and panelled piers with canopies to restaurant and theatre entrances in wings, that to theatre with ornamental iron brackets and enrichments with white glass lettering to valence.
First floor has square headed windows between pilastered piers rising from dentil corniced
entablature to support entablature with enriched frieze, in the wings the windows are tripartite and the flanking piers have aediculed segmental pedimented niches containing statues.
The central 3 windows of the 2nd floor, set on an enriched panelled pseudo-pedestal, are arcaded with Ionic half-columns flanking the piers, the spandrels carved with draped female figures, festoons and foliage; the wings on this floor have Ionic columned Venetian windows with fan patterned lunettes and are flanked by pairs of Corinthian pilasters. Deep entablature with pediments over wings set against high pedestalled parapet.
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