Clerkenwell Design Week: where innovation and historic design collide

From its earliest days as the site of the ‘Clerk’s Well’ – a location where monks gathered – Clerkenwell has been a place of convergence. Historically, it was where town and countryside met – with cattle brought via Caledonian Road to Smithfield Market – and where the sacred met the secular at the Priory of the Knights Hospitaller.

Today, it acts as a crossroads between London’s West and East Ends and the City, where culture merges with industry and commerce. It’s no surprise that, with such disparate influences, Clerkenwell should evolve into a design corridor. For centuries, watchmakers, metalworkers, printers and other guilds shaped a built environment that, today, accommodates contemporary showrooms nestled comfortably among historical remains.

Each year, Clerkenwell Design Week offers an opportunity for the neighbourhood’s ancient buildings to play host to the latest in design innovations. For 2025’s event, which took place May 20–22, RIBA partnered with architectural commentator and built environment expert Kunle Barker to lead a curated walking tour through this fascinating London district.

The tour began at Cosentino’s showroom, a repurposed former bank near Holborn Circus. Here, participants were invited to explore surfaces not as static displays, but as working elements embedded into the space, with product ranges including Dekton and Silestone used on floors, walls, skirting boards, bathroom vanities and a fireplace. The building provides an inviting and airy space for designers and manufacturer to collaborate on specifications – and FYI, they serve good coffee. (On the other two days on which this tour was run, sponsors Blum and König + Neurath had the honour of hosting the breakfasts.)

London's diverging history

‘Clerkenwell is where the city’s story starts to split in all directions,’ Barker observed, pausing near St John’s Gate, the 16th-century portal to the former Augustinian medieval priory. It’s also an area that seems constantly in flux. Skirting past the Barbican to reach Smithfield Market, we encountered this first hand: the 900-year-old meat market (active until 2028) is being transformed into the future London Museum, thus witnessing the simultaneous preservation and destruction of Farringdon’s heritage. Despite the imminent closure of the businesses, a large portion of the expansive site is yet to be allocated a new function.

However, this week, above Smithfield’s cast-iron arcades (designed by Horace Jones in 1866) an exhibition space hosted CDW participants such as Johnstone’s Paint, Silent Gliss and Paper Lounge, the latter providing a playful pop-up display of recyclable concertina seating.

Further along, London’s oldest surviving parish church, St Bartholomew the Great (founded in 1123) was temporarily dubbed ‘The Church of Design’. Inside, among displays of contemporary furniture and Iznik tiles, eco-resin Koolique champagne serveware framed a Byzantine icon with icicle-like forms. This church has an illustrious history: it was here, confirmed Barker, that Hugh Grant absconded in 1994’s Four Weddings and a Funeral.

The church building, too, is an architectural mishmash, comprising Gothic and Romanesque elements, a wooden Tudor gateway and a flint facade – a rare material choice for London. Near the entranceway, Damian Hirst’s sculpture of the martyred Saint Bartholomew (Exquisite Pain) greeted visitors with his flayed skin draped nonchalantly over his arm.

An injection of theatre

But the most theatrical part of the tour was yet to come, in Charterhouse Square (once a bubonic plague pit – but we will move swiftly on), with artist Alex Chinneck’s rippling new installation A Week at the Knees. Fabricated from Michelmersh bricks, Crittall windows and 4.6 tonnes of reclaimed steel, the reimagined Georgian facade would have been at home in Alice in Wonderland; it provided a unique and fluid frame through which to view the eclectic mix of architectural styles surrounding the square, from the medieval Charterhouse complex to the Art Deco Florin Court.

At Charterhouse, once a Carthusian monastery, exhibitors including Geberit showcased their installations within cloistered courtyards. The number and range of exhibitors at CDW appears to grow year on year, and as one tour member commented (after they had been hurried out – so much did they enjoy it), CDW presents a rare opportunity for architects to speak to this many manufacturers face to face, side by side.

Our walk concluded at Sessions House, a neoclassical former courthouse reanimated as a design venue, where the Pantheon-inspired dome illuminated yet more displays below. Of course, no discussion of Clerkenwell would be complete without mentioning its legendary pubs, including one, the Crown Tavern, where Lenin and Stalin reputedly met in 1905.

Throughout the walk, Kunle Barker brought enthusiasm, knowledge and characteristic humour to his commentary; the morning offered an inspiring look at what is possible when product innovation and historical design converge.