Many sponsors have helped augment the Arts Council and Heritage Lottery grants, including the Jerwood and Clore Foundations and the merchant bank UBS, which raised £3.5 million - helped by the fact that the UBS executive director, Ian Martin, was also chairman of the St. Luke's project.

Although the feel of the building has changed hugely since it was a functioning church - almost nothing of the original interior survived apart from some spaces in the tower - the new use feels wholly appropriate. The building seemed to want to help today's designers: for instance services consultants Max Fordham & Partners found the louvred bell tower was perfect for ventilation, and were able to install a very eco-friendly cooling system using the thermal mass of the ground beneath the church as a heat regulator.

In the end, it's a kind of alchemy. Here was a redundant, wrecked building that everyone acknowledged was special, but nobody knew what to do with. Now it contains a brand-new second London base for the reinvigorated LSO, a world-class orchestra. Some of the best brains in the business have worked on St. Luke's, but more importantly, the project enjoyed enormous goodwill. It shows.