Centre Point

LDNiCON

LDNiCON is about celebrating Londons architectural endevours and uncovering the quirky, sometimes seemingly bland, components of the city. We are not focused on headline city architecture, rather, second course servings of London’s buildings and the spaces between them. These components represent the mass of the city and contribute more to the spatial experience than well-recognised buildings in London - the experience that most Londoners live through in their day-to-day existence. This is what we are most interested in.

Each month we will share our findings; experiences and ideas of what we think make architectural icons in the city of London.

Centre Point

Location : 101-103 New Oxford Street
Built : 1963
Architect : Robert Seifert

Builder : Wimpey Construction

Client : Harry Hyams

Construction Cost : £5.5 million

What's hot :At the time of completion it was the worlds tallest pre-cast concrete structure.
What's not : It was left empty for 15 years.
The pedestrian and traffic design at street level is a great example of how to encourage anti social behaviour and force pedestrians to dangerously run across busy roads.

Quicktime panorama : www.casa.ucl.ac.uk

Google map : maps.google.co.uk

Standing rigidly at the intersection of streaming manic day shoppers and queuing night bus hopefuls, a building with a regular structural lattice of concrete and green glass soars 117 meters above. It is self-obedient in it’s ordering of facade elements; glazing modules bounded by confidently expressed pre-cast concrete elements, wrapping around its mildly rectangular floor plate. An obedience that is contrary to the late night behaviour usually found at the base of the building: drunken souls making their way home, often making good use of the pavement as a public latrine.

Architect Robert Seifert designed Centre Point. He was a brave and commercially viscous architect. Seifert’s contribution and influence to London’s skyline is said to be comparable to Sir Christopher Wren’s in effort, with numerous buildings in London and about 500 built throughout Europe. (emporis.com) Seifert studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture after winning a scholarship there in 1972. Starting his practice soon after graduation, his work evolved from classically designed housing schemes in North London to modernist expressionism, exemplified by his 22 storey reinforced concrete office building "Tolworth House".

Centre Point was the tallest building in London at the time of completion and most daring with a load-bearing facade constructed from pre-cast concrete elements. Internally sited cranes were used to rise H-shaped units into place.

These were bolted together and to the floor, with loads designed to be carried by two pre-cast concrete columns located centrally in the building. Seifert had explained that the H-shaped units 'Should provide interesting modelling in a self-finished material capable of withstanding extremes of exposure and the elimination of wet materials will considerably speed up the construction time 'This was innovative thinking at the time and the application of such a construction method is now common through out the building world.

It was a commercially ambitious development, which was hounded by controversy the moment it was completed. The developer Harry Hyams negotiated a deal with the London County Council to incorporate a traffic round about at the base of the building in return for a 150 year lease on the site and permission to build a 36 storey tower.

Once it was completed, the London property market began to boom and rents started to rise sharply. The economics were such that it was better to leave the building empty then rent it out and tie the value down to a defined rent period. The value of the building was increasing greater than the lost rental income.

So it remained empty for 15 years, much to the disgust of the people of London.

As the London housing crisis continued and the homeless looked up at the monstrous display of corporate greed that was Centre Point, squatters and protesters invaded the building at various times to make their views heard. One set of protesters were led by a then London School of Economics lecturer, who is now the current mayor of London, Ken Livingston.

For all its corporate dramas, Centre Point is an architectural gemstone. It is raw, edgy in appearance and function, a high value commodity that with much polishing could make the street level a pleasant place to be, encouraging legitimate business activities.

Centre Point plays a central role to many street navigators of central London. It stands 117 meters tall and is the tallest visible object around. The North Star for central London, lost tourists seek out the rhythm of the buildings 1960’s concrete and glass facade to get them back on course as they chase around London’s list of ‘must-see’. Helpful residents use the building as a reference point when giving out directions to tired shoppers needing a coffee or pizza slice break.

The junction beneath centre point gives you two options to get to the other side of the building: Avoid being killed as you run across the street to catch a bus or take the street sleepers bungalow, come public lavatory, that is the street under pass. This is the Centre Point experience and is an integral part to many peoples journey. The wise are now accustomed to it’s dark under passages and illogical street arrangement. The new are startled at the odours, the greyness, the accumulated filth and wary of huddled street sleepers. All of this in the heart of an international tourist destination and a leading financial centre of the world, overlooked by what we think makes a London icon, Centre Point.

Written by Tai Hollingsbee