The trend for converting industrial and factory spaces into spaces of cotemporary art is not a new idea: think Herzog & de Meuron’s Tate Modern, Heatherwick Studio’s Zeitz MOCAA, or the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan (see 00105). But when we think of such cultural reuse, we would usually think of the original shell as a concrete monolith and not a Beaux Arts style classical pile.

Ladbroke Hall in London’s Notting Hill disguises its industrial heritage well. Once the main building for a showroom and assembly factory for Clément-Talbot cars, with its oversized portico under a glazed arched window and heraldic crest, you would be forgiven for thinking it is a grand private country-house style residence for a wealthy West Londoner. There are connections to a country estate, though – the name Ladbroke Hall was inspired by the country seat of the parents-in-law of the financer of the project, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, and the coat of arms is that of his family.




That is where the similarities end, however, as internally the building was very different to any country home. While immaculately finished within grand architecture and no-expense-spared material finishes, the 1902 hall was the front building to Britain’s first purpose-built car factory, housing the offices and boardroom for a factory campus and test track extended into the lands behind.

After World War 2 concluded, Talbot moved production to a new site, with the site changing through a variety of uses including a car dealership and Thames Television studios, until during covid when the founders of Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Loïc Le Gaillard and Julien Lombrail, saw the vast building and saw its potential as a home of culture, art, design, and dining.




Having opened in 2023 as the 4,000 square metres-large Ladbroke Hall, it now offers all these things across a suite of spaces, with a restaurant at the heart underneath the central arched roof. Carpenters Workshop Gallery, which specialises in design and furniture, takes up the majority of one wing in a variety of spaces to display delicate jewellery through to heavy furniture. This is the London HQ of a gallery which also boasts spaces in New York, Paris, and Los Angeles with a focus on functional art, collectable design, and jewellery.

Just opened in their main space in London is a display by Wendell Castle, who makes both sculpture and extremely sculptural furniture. With a process that begins with clamped masses of stacked, laminated wood, Castle then directly carves sinuous and nature-influenced shapes into the material. Recent adoption of digital modelling has allowed him to explore new, experimental forms, including one work on show, Suspended Disbelief (2015) a cantilevered table surface which extends over four metres in total length.

The works on show are all black, reading as constantly shifting silhouettes as one walks around the immaculate white gallery spaces, but up close the interplay between carved form and laminated wood grain becomes clear, creating an subtlety of material perhaps not expected when seen from across the room.




Another American artist, Los Angeles-based Roger Herman, is showing in another Carpenters Workshop Gallery space with a mix of ceramics and painting. Six large canvases of abstract, colourful texture hang on walls surrounding plinths of pots and mezcal tequila cups, each celebrating a handmade finish in both form and playful applied colour. In an adjacent gallery, the scale of presentation gets smaller still with a display of jewellery created as a collaboration between designers Michèle Lamy and Loree Rodkin, a series of seven zodiac-inspired rings – which the pair have coined “finger armour.”



At the centre of Ladbroke Hall is a new restaurant venture, Pollini, which uses the building’s grand portico as its primary entrance. It is led by and takes its name from head chef Emanuele Pollinni, and has an fine dining Italian focus within a space designed by Vincenzo De Cotiis Architects, who have created a minimal and striking black and white theme set off by furniture from Carpenters Workshop Gallery designers.

On the plate, think of food such as vitello tonnato, monkfish with clams, beef carpaccio with artichoke, and mortadella with black truffle and tapioca crisp. From April, diners will also be able to enjoy these dishes in the new rear garden, laid out by Chelsea Flower Show winner Luciano Giubbilei, or within a Jean Prouvé-designed pavilion. The waiting staff all wear a uniform inspired by the car factory heritage, overalls with the Sunbeam Talbot Automobile Works round logo on the rear.






That logo returns at a much larger scale in an enormous hall within the second wing of the building. The logo is looking down over a large hall used as a for-hire space and regular musical performances, including a regular jazz night. Tucked away under this space, with the character of a secret speakeasy, is a cocktail bar, and is central to the community of art and design practitioners and lovers that the owners hope will frequent the building.