But the exhibition pavilion with its sculpted concrete ceiling only accounts for around 20 per cent of the project. To get to the rest - the library, reading room and archives - you must descend a spiral staircase, where you find yourself in the sunken building snaking through the garden. You sit there, maps spread out in front of you, your eyes on a level with the grass outside. Above your head on the terrace, RGS members will be sitting at tables, like as not having tea or holding parties. It is all very cleverly and modestly done.

What Downie shows here is obvious enough, but needs re-telling: that a good modern building can not only exist alongside a powerful old one, but can palpably enhance it. The old Royal Geographical Society has not gone away, but it has been revealed. Henceforth we shall look at it, and use it, in a new way. Try to forget the big, glittering look-at-me icons for a moment: in contrast, this is what intelligent architecture is all about.

http://www.rgs.org - the client.
http://www.studiodownie.com - the architect.