The Prince of Wales unveiled the new garden at the centre of London\'s V&A Museum this month (July) to reveal a refreshingly understated sandstone and grass complement to the ornate Francis Fowke facade it fronts and the other buildings that enclose it. The 2,800m2 garden was designed by Kim Wilkie and built thanks to a £2million donation by industrialist John Madejski. The stone used is Crosland Hill York stone with a rubbed finish from Johnsons Wellfield Quarries, which Kim Wilkie describes as "about the most beautiful York stone being quarried". A contrasting red sandstone from China, supplied by Farrar, who also quarry York stone, forms a shallow, oval pool, that can be drained in less than an hour to provide a firm standing for parties.

Kim Wilkie won the competition to design the pool against entries from many other internationally famous designers (see NSS September 2003), including Gufstafson Porter, who designed the memorial to Princess Diana in Hyde Park. Kim did learn one lesson from the Diana Memorial, and that was the benefit of computerisation in stone preparation. Kim Wilkie Associates used Texxus, the same people who had transformed the freehand designs of the Diana Memorial into granite reality in conjunction with stonemasons S McConnell & Sons in Northern Ireland. The same combination produced the stone for the oval pool in the V&A garden, with the stone being laid by London specialists Szerelmey.

More about the Madejski Garden in the next issue of NSS.