France`s grand architect Dominique Perrault has designed his first building here - a delightful tea pavilion in a Surrey parkI had gone to Reigate in search of the grave of Samuel Palmer{1805-81}. Palmer was the young English painter befriended by thevisionary English poet and artist William Blake. Largely as a result oftheir meeting, Palmer went on to paint some of the most inspiring,unexpected and beautiful of all English romantic landscape paintings.What I hadn`t known until I went for a cup of tea in Reigate`shandsome Priory Park is that a quite different vision has emanated inthis ancient setting. Here is a brand-new circular pavilion café designed by Dominique Perrault,architect of none less than the Bibliotheque Nationale de France{1989-96}, the enormous and controversial Paris library better known athome as the TGB, or Tres Grande Bibliotheque. This is the one with the huge L-shaped glass towers,shaped like open books, in which are stacked the millions of volumesavailable to readers tucked away in the dark depths of this Mitterandgrand projet. The Reigate pavilion is as surprising a design to come across in Priory Parkas a Samuel Palmer landscape must have been to his contemporaries. Insome lights and from some angles, it appears to hover just above themanicured lawns. All glass doors, floor to ceiling windows andmirror-polished stainless steel uprights, it positively gleams.Inside, the bright pavilion offers tea and cakes, of course, as wellas public lavatories, an office for café management and communitypolice, and a burgeoning "interpretation centre" aimed at telling thestory of the renovated Priory Park. The roof is supported by fourcolumns, two of which have been clad in the form of cones. The heatingsystem is as "green" as the park itself. The floor, all brightlycoloured circles, is an artwork, although it will be interesting to seehow it copes with tens of thousands of pairs of parkland shoes from now{it opened on 12th June} and on through the course of an English summer{warm rain/mud}, autumn {cool rain/mud} and winter {cold rain/mud}. Thepavilion, though, is a delight, an up-to-the-minute parkland follyserving happily useful purposes while acting as a good old-fashionedeyecatcher in the landscape.There is something delightfully English in the way that this is thefirst building in the country by one of France`s leading architects. AsI drank my tea, I tried to remember what other projects Perrault isworking on, but even without access to the internet to help, I managedto think of the New Marinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, the European Courtof Justice, Luxembourg, the Habitat Sky Hotel, Barcelona and auniversity in Seoul. All these are very grand projects. England haspolitely offered a tearoom in a park in the conservative Surreycommuter belt. I think this is rather great, but not all decent,upstanding Reigate folk feel the same.Writing in a style antique even in Samuel Palmer`s day, BarrieSingleton offers this hostile, if entertaining verse, entitled GhastlyGazebo:Four Square the Priory stands parked proudly primeAs right today as in conception`s year.Clean classic confident of time`s defeatRenewed yet redolent of Heritage.Though time`s soft touch erodes, good stone endures;The Priory wearing well its centuriesAnd fronting-sward, in pride, brooks no affrontAs each the other pays mute compliment.Yet is this idyll now come under threatA plastic tea house - single use - then binnedRoundly obscene - roundly to be condemned;Incongruous adjunct to that prior art.Oh Powers that Be: Awake and be aware!We plead in Reigate`s name: "Don`t put it there!" Yet, there it is; the first glimpse on very English soil of thepower of magisterial contemporary French design. Shame, though, aboutthe cheap aluminium chairs; in Monsieur Perrault`s drawings, these wereto have been as modern as modern can b
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