Globally-renowned architect Rafael Vinõly brings his award-winning contemporary design to the heart of the capital.
London has a new landmark. The Bryanston, Hyde Park has opened its doors as an elegant 18-storey residential building in the heart of the capital. It’s the work of globally renowned architect Rafael Vinõly, the New York-based maestro who, despite winning numerous international awards in a near forty year career, had never designed a residential building in the UK.
Until now. His work at The Bryanston offers just 54 apartments for sale, elegant one to six bedroom homes with volume-enhancing three metre ceilings and super-sized windows that serve up a moving kaleidoscope of prime London life.
The Bryanston faces Marble Arch and is the tallest residential building overlooking Hyde Park. From the apartments the compelling southerly views stretch over green parkland and a canopy of trees to the Royal Albert Hall and Kensington Palace. As the largest of central London’s four Royal Parks, 350 prime acres edged by Park Lane and Knightsbridge, Hyde Park is a supremely prestigious location and it was the starting point for Vinõly’s inspiration.
“You couldn’t ask for a more panoramic corner,” Vinõly says. “It’s such an iconic site, on the edge of Hyde Park, one block from the most successful retail street in urban design with characterful streets behind. The Bryanston is a project that is completely played out on its relationship to Hyde Park, it couldn’t work in any other city. I think Hyde Park is absolutely extraordinary, the monumental perspectives, the picturesque corners and the Serpentine give a different experience every time you walk there.”
The Bryanston is a brand new building that forms an integral part of the reimagined Marble Arch Place. It’s a gateway to the West End, a link from Hyde Park to the picturesque streets of Marylebone to the north and Mayfair to the south. Vinõly’s design, a tower atop a base podium, offers apartments with angular edges and terraces and others with accentuated curves, while the entire building is covered with a creamy façade of smooth Portland stone.
“It is such a fabulous natural stone, soft, sturdy and durable,” Vinõly says. “The building has knife-like edges and gentle, round plains which are only possible with a stone like this. It was also very important to make the glass a part of the facade and not an interruption, a hugely expensive task that 90% of developers would not have agreed to. The curvature of the glass in the tower is absolutely critical. It would be a totally different building if the glass was faceted and Almacantar understood this. The Bryanston is uniquely well built.”
Vinõly’s design ensures the apartments focus on those mesmerising views, concentrating he says, “on framing them and never letting them swallow you.” Full height windows in the podium apartments give way to horizontal windows in the tower that best highlight the sweeping panorama. Despite the prestigious location and generous volumes, these are designed on a human scale as intensely private residences. They’re a calm oasis, the complex engineering of the basement – “a gigantic inner city” Vinõly says – providing outstanding acoustic insulation while the restrained architecture provides an understated elegance, an intimate focus on looking outwards rather than being seen.
Vinõly returns repeatedly to the inspiration provided by Hyde Park. Over the past eighteen months, the importance of living close to nature, parks and open spaces has been a critical consideration for buyers at every price point. Research from estate agency Savills shows that it has become the top priority for over half of all purchasers, up from 42% in 2019 to 55% and that the so-called ‘park premium’, the additional cost of a London home beside a park, rose from 13.4% in 2015 to 28.1% in 2021.
"Architecture is a long process,” Vinõly says. “In a world where fashions change so quickly it is important to be timeless.” Along with London buses, expansive parks and Buckingham Palace, The Bryanston is set to be a true London classic.
