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30 Cannon Street
Whinney, Son and Austen Hall | |
| location | London |
| function | office |
| contributed by | davidb |
Opinions are divided over this building. Most commentators dismiss it, but there is a small number of admirers. Love it or loathe it - it is distinctive. The triangular site, at the junction of Cannon Street and Queen Victoria Street is that of a former Wren church, destroyed in the Second World War. The façade is formed of non load-bearing repetitive cladding units. In each of the major elevations, there is a small number of double-sized bays, which help to relieve the visual monotony. The cladding units are cast from glass reinforced concrete. In fact, this was the first building anywhere in the world to be entirely clad with this material. Each floor is subtly larger than the one below it giving the building the appearance that the walls are leaning out.
Just a small correction.
I was working for Whinneys in the site office as an Architectural Trainee. Our first site office was above a Victorian Fire station that occupied the site prior to demolition as part of our contract , the rest is quite accurate, Pilkington provided the precast cladding units and the partner in charge, Jeremy Macki-Lewis received quite a lot of publicity in national newspapers at the unveiling.
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