1 Westminster Bridge

1 Westminster Bridge is a big grey forbidding building that stands in the middle of the roundabout at the southern end of Westminster bridge. There’s no obvious way to get in because the entrance used to be via an overhead walkway from the GLC headquarters at County Hall. It was designed by the GLC’s own architects and completed in 1974 but fell into disuse when Thatcher dissolved the GLC in 1987. It wasn’t a very good building. According to an article in the Independent in 1998:

Every time the sun came out, even for five seconds, the blinds would come down for 45 minutes. Because of this they wore out very quickly and took on a life of their own, going up and down at random all day, and finally got permanently stuck down over the windows. The air conditioning tubes sucked in cold air from above the Thames, so the office became Arctic in winter. And the humidity control was so sensitive that you couldn’t boil a kettle in the building for fear of disturbing the air-cooling system. 

Frogmore Estates and Galliard Homes bought the building very cheaply in 1995. The developers applied repeatedly for planning permission for various schemes to develop the site but they were all refused for different reasons.

I seem to remember it being occupied by some anarchists protesting about homelessness in London in the early 90s although I can’t find any record of that. I also remember hearing rumours that it was being used by MI5 for interrogations a little while after that.

Anyway, Frogmore finally got permission to develop the site into a 15 storey, 913 bedroom hotel in 2005. And here’s the exciting bit: The existing building is going to be demolished this week, at 11:00 AM on Thursday 25 May. There’s a big LED timer on the front of the building counting down the seconds until it comes down so I’m guessing it’s going to be exciting. I’m going to try and be there if I possibly can.

5 thoughts on “1 Westminster Bridge

  1. I will be there if possible. I used to work opposite that building. I have no fond memories, but I do like to see things go ca-bloooey.

  2. Update: It seems that the demolition is going to take 16 weeks and it will be a gentle, gradual affair rather than an explosion. Ah well.

  3. yes – i was disapointed to find that a ‘brave’ child would be pushing a button that would release the bulldozers. Towards the tea hut I imagine.

  4. It’s still pretty much there, two weeks later. I think they’ve bashed one corner off and some of the roof. Those old GLC architects, they built things to last you know. I bet they put extra cement in the concrete or something and the developers will end up going bust and leaving it there, even grimmer looking than before.

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