Glyndebourne in the City

Early last century, an impoverished youth emerged from the East End. Able and hard-working, he discovered — as many had before him — that the City offered an open route to opportunity and riches. By the early 1950s, Rudolph Palumbo decided he could afford a family office. So he commissioned a Queen Anne building on Walbrook. Although it could not compensate for the City’s grievous architectural losses during the war, it was a reassertion of old values: of a long tradition that finance and the fine arts could march together.

Forty years on, Rudolph’s son Peter was having lunch with Mark Birley at the Connaught. Mark, son of Oswald, a much underrated painter, had as much taste as any Englishman in the 20th century. ‘What are you going to do with that building of yours?’ he enquired. ‘I thought of turning it into a club, but only if you’ll design it,’ said Peter.