William Waldorf Astor

Two Temple Place (2TP) is full of stories. Inside and out it is extraordinary and clearly very personal to William Waldorf Astor in its subjects. Astor’s children wrote after his death that he was “essentially a planner”, expressing himself in his schemes for his properties and his newspapers in a way he found difficult in person. Astor himself practiced in sculpture, drawing and writing. The “Wounded Amazon” which you can find in the garden at Cliveden is an extraordinary piece of carving for an amateur – if it is his. His writing on the other hand is medieval pastiche. He was self-consciously a “Renaissance man”, an avid collector immersed in history, art and nostalgia and speaking German and Italian very well.

His architectural creations span centuries and countries in their inspiration and his typical year was a journey through the nostalgic scenarios he created: his re-enactment of the greats of Rome with his villa in Sorrento; the tragic dealings of monarchy and aristocracy at Hever; the arcadian hybridity of Cliveden and the journey through literature that is Two Temple Place, ostensibly an office. His is a reflective nostalgia that creates an idealisation of the past that connects to a present which he is actively curating.