Chiswick House Café, London, by Caruso St John Architects

Some images taken today of the new café at Chiswick House, which looks pretty complete and is due to open in the Spring.

One of the pleasures of having a studio at Pavilion Studios in Chiswick is my walk to work, which takes me through the grounds of Chiswick House. For those of you who haven't visited, it's a beautiful neo-Palladian villa that was built by the third Earl of Burlington in 1729 to display is art collection (as you do).

The house itself is pretty spectacular and well worth a visit, but equally wondrous are the gardens, which are considered a seminal piece of landscape design. Designed by William Kent, it features formal Italianate elements, including temples and exotic statuary, which were part of the house's original landscaping scheme. Kent subsequently redesigned parts of the garden in a much more naturalistic style, and the results are regarded as the birthplace of the English Landscape Movement, and inspired such significant parks and gardens as New York's Central Park and the grounds of Blenheim Palace.

The gardens are currently being restored, in a major project that includes a new café building designed by architect Caruso St John. It features huge floor-to-ceiling windows and a stone colonnade, which has apparently been inspired by the "arcaded facades of the stable wings of country villas in the Veneto". While this may sound rather inappropriate for grey London, a visit to the house and gardens – with their avenues of exotic statues and cyprus trees – really feels like a trip to an Italian palazzo, especially on a summer's day.

On a bright day like today, the render and Portland stone facade of the new café really gleams in the sunshine, with lovely shadows of trees playing across the walls.

Now I just have to wait until the café opens - hopefully a good place to get a decent coffee and sarnie at lunchtimes.