About Us
London's prime resource for Architectural Salvage, Antique Fireplaces,
Restored Cast Iron Radiators, Antique Doors, Reclaimed Wood,
Reclaimed Flagstones and Reclaimed Building Materials.
Architectural Forum by Jason and Nadine Davies strives to present the best quality architectural salvage at the most reasonable prices in the most friendly manner. Buying the finest and historically interesting pieces of buildings and gardens, which is part of the project to rescue fine old reclaimed building materials and architectural artifacts from its destiny otherwise in landfill. This not only saves the crafts skills of yesteryear to give it a second chance to be appreciated for future generations, but also saves scarce resources for reuse as one planet living, and reduces those all-important carbon emissions and environmental impacts.
Over the years Jason Davies of Architectural Forum has been involved with some pretty spectacular salvage jobs including removals from Briitish Museum, Tower of London, Tate Gallery, Bond Street galleries, some of London's finest houses, and not forgetting the Baltic Exchange, home now to the Gherkin, which ended up being the biggest salvage of a building in Europe in since London Bridge was sold to Arizona, a deal assisted by Jason's father Derek Davies. So this business has a an architectural salvage pedigree.
The process of salvaging parts from old buildings start to finish seems pretty straightforward. The phone rings, and a demolition contractor says: "We have just started stripping out a huge Edwardian house in Hampstead. Come and look if you're interested, but the stuff has to be moved today and tomorrow." Jason dashes to view, and agrees which pieces he has time to rescue, balancing this with what he thinks might be saleable and the prices the demolition contractor wants. Around 90 per cent of what Jason is offered he has to turn down because the price is too high, or he does not have enough storage space. Sometimes the salvage, beautiful and historically-important as it might be, is simply not a commercial proposition because it could take years to restore and to find a customer to buy it. Usually, the smaller the items are, and the more two dimensional, the easier they are to salvage and resell. This means that fine Edwardian oak panelled rooms and fab Victorian oak staircases, of which Architectural Forum normally has a few in stock, are the hardest to sell.
Once the items have been removed either by the demolition contractor, or more often by one of Architectural Forum's own deconstruction teams, they are transported to a holding store prior to restoration and display. Restoration of iron items is done in-house at the Essex Road workshop. This is where antique radiators, Victorian register grates and regency hob grates are restored. The radiators are taken apart, cleaned, stripped of paint, and carefully reassembled ready for the customer's preferred finish which might be traditional or modern colours or even burnished iron. Wooden items are repaired and repolished, and some may be repurposed or recrafted into a new item. Old redundant Victorian window frames, for example, are turned into mirrors by reglazing them with new mirror glass. Reclaimed stonework is repaired by Architectural Forum's mason, and reclaimed Leicestershire pink granite stone setts and York stone flagstones are cleaned and broken pieces removed. Architectural Forum also has a network of specialist craftspeople who can be called on when needed, for example when repairing or replacing the broken globe lanterns to early Victorian iron street lamps.
After restoration many items are moved to the Essex Road showrooms and set top on display awaiting sale. There are usually forty or so antique stone, marble, wood and iron fireplaces in the basement showrooms, and antique lighting, panelling and woodwork, brassware and a range of other architectural antiques in the ground floor showrooms. Architectural Forum also tries to make sure every new item is places on its website as early as possible. The internet and the mobile web is seen as an important part of the process these days.
Customers come from the local area around Islington, and north and east London from Clerkenwell to Shoreditch, as well as further afield and to may other countries abroad. Antique fireplaces, stoves and grates can be fitted by Jason's brother Matt Davies. Many items are fitted by client's own builders, sometimes with advice from Jason. Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie's Italian' wanted to use salvaged brown and white glazed Victorian bricks in the public cooking areas of the restaurant chain - these can be seen in the Westfield branch in Shepherd's Bush - but whole bricks could not be used so a system of scalping the glazed section of each brick was approved by the interior designers, and although the price and carbon footprint was marginally higher it resulted in a fabulous green example of interior fit-out in the hospitality sector.
Architectural Forum has been in the vanguard of developments within the UK architectural salvage sector. We believe in maintaining high standards in purchasing of stock and we support the UK's only code for dealers in architectural salvage, the Salvo Code (Cert No 131) of which we have been members since July 2003, as well as Salvo Theft Alerts. Jason Davies has also attended meetings aimed at creating a trade association and is a big supporter of the annual Salvo Fair where Architectural Forum normally has a major stand. The business has also appeared on TV most notable on BBC2's The Reclaimer's series in 2006 and with Kirstie Allsopp in Handmade Homes in 2010.
312 Essex Road, Islington N1 3AX Tel : 020 7704 0982 & 020 7688 1539 Mob : 07956 510409
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