Administration Block to the Former General Electrical Company Witton Works

Administration Block to the former GEC Witton Works

Built between 1920 and 1922 for the General Electrical Company Ltd, this administrative block was designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners, the most noted designers of factory buildings in the inter-war period. The building comprises a reinforced concrete frame with rendered brick cladding and a Portland stone entrance. It has a flat roof hidden behind parapets.

The structure is arranged as an asymmetrical U-shaped block. The principal three-storey facade facing Electric Avenue stretches for seventeen bays and is noticeably battered. It features a projecting single-bay centrepiece and end pavilions, with side wings set back but protruding behind these. A giant order of plain, unmoulded pilasters with tasselled volutes divides the other windows and is repeated in the architraves of the end pavilions. All elements are set under a massive cornice with fluted frieze on a high, stepped plinth. The attic storey has moulded architraves with roundels in the corners, repeating those of the frieze. All windows are small-paned metal casements.

The centrepiece is the most striking element: a richly Egyptian-styled pylon with engaged lotus columns, heavy fluted architraves, frieze and pediment set with a writhing snake motif. The inner architrave frames bronzed and heavily decorated double doors with smaller inset pilasters under roundel motifs. At each end of this range are similar but simpler battered doors. The left-hand wing spans five bays and the right-hand wing eight bays, both executed very simply. On either side, first-floor glazed links connect the administrative building with earlier factories, continuing the cornice and motifs of the main facade.

Interior

The ground floor entrance hallway features fluted Egyptian columns supporting a moulded ceiling with a segmental central oval dome and round light fittings. The segmental pattern is repeated in the oval sun-ray motif of the patterned terrazzo floors. Two of the four original entrance doors to either side retain small-paned inset glazing and top-lights; two have been replaced and the lift has been renewed, though the staircase wrapping round it retains some mouldings. Ground-floor offices have moulded architrave surrounds and toplights to their doors.

The first floor survives completely, with a full set of doors featuring carefully designed Egyptian-style bronze door furniture. All offices have battered architrave surrounds to the doors, moulded picture rails with tasselled ends, and cornices. The reception room or board room is the most spectacular space, measuring five internal bays by four in extent. It is fully panelled with marquetry inlay in a battered style with rounded base and heavy cornice, with architraves repeating the pattern of the exterior. Even the keyholes are carefully battered. Fitted bookcases form an important element in the composition. The moulded plaster ceiling features a circular centrepiece between fluted and torchere mouldings. Staircases at either end of the front block have continuous steel balustrades.

This is the earliest building by the firm discovered in good condition, with an exceptional interior—notably the board room—of a quality found nowhere else in their work. The style anticipates their famous Hoover Building of 1932–35, but in the quality of detailing to the entrance and board room this building is more carefully wrought.