{"id":7997,"date":"2015-10-08T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/?p=7997"},"modified":"2024-05-26T10:24:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-26T10:24:47","slug":"foreign-commonwealth-office-open-house-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/foreign-commonwealth-office-open-house-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Foreign & Commonwealth Office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Inside<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There was one building that I really wanted to visit during the Open House London<\/a> weekend: The Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Last year I’d seen Kelly<\/a> share pictures of the building on her blog and it looked amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I had a million other things to do on Sunday, I wanted to be there as soon as they opened. Well, such plans never work with me… But fortunately I only had to wait a couple of minutes before they let me in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Inside<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, volunteers were handing out brochures about the history of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Which was a good thing, since I was so impressed with the architecture that I didn’t really do my homework. What exactly does the Foreign & Commonwealth Office do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without wanting to turn this into a Wikipedia post, in short they’re a ministerial department promoting the United Kingdom’s interests overseas, and supporting their citizens and businesses around the globe. Good to know! Now I’m ready to go in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The building was designed in 1858 by architect George Gilbert Scott. The same architect who designed the St Pancras Chambers<\/a> that I visited the day before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first thing you see is the Grand Staircase. No wonder we had to wait a while. Scott wanted to impress foreign visitors with this staircase and tried to make it look like a national palace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign or not, this will impress everyone. People went crazy with their cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Inside<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yes, the Grand Staircase would be quite nice to have in – well – any office (or palace). But what I really came to see here was the Durbar Court, the heart of the former India Office. Isn’t it gorgeous?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The India Office oversaw the colonial administration of India and was created by architect M.D. Wyatt (Paddington Station & Crystal Palace) in 1866.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today there were people explaining the many initiatives and responsibilities of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. But on other days – when people like you and I are not allowed to Instagram it –  it’s used for events (such as the afterparty of the Twilight film premiere).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Inside<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Originally the court didn’t have a roof. What were they thinking? So two years later they added one. Apparently not only because of the rain, but also because of what the increasing pigeon population was dropping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court got its name in 1902 when King Edward VII’s coronation was celebrated here. Durbar is a Persian term that was used in India for a ruler’s court. The portrait busts represent important people in Anglo-Indian history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Inside<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For me this was the first time I visited buildings during Open House London that are usually not open to the general public. I only had time to visit two, but next year I want to be better prepared and visit more. It’s amazing! By the time I left there was a long queue of people waiting to get in, so it’s better to go early in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have any tips for what I should visit next year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was one building that I really wanted to visit during the Open House London weekend: The Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Last year I’d seen Kelly share pictures of the building on her blog and it looked amazing. Since I had a million other things to do on Sunday, I wanted to be there as soon as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,24,13,25,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-culture","category-city-trip","category-europe","category-london","category-united-kingdom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanpixxels.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}