Congress House Including Forecourt And Courtyard Sculptures

This is a trades union headquarters building and sculptures constructed between 1953 and 1957, designed by David du R Aberdeen. The sculptures are by Jacob Epstein and Bernard Meadows, and the building was commissioned by the Trades Union Congress. It is constructed from polished granite and blue tile cladding, with aluminium windows.

The building is seven storeys high and has 28 windows arranged in a continuous strip. Its E-shaped plan is dictated by the restricted site bounded by three streets, and a height limitation of 80 feet. The building accommodates a Memorial Hall, Library, Secretariat, and Council Chamber. The main elevation, facing Great Russell Street, is a rectangular block raised on pilotis. The ground floor is recessed and glazed, while the upper floors feature continuous strip windows alternating with bands of granite cladding. The top floor has large rectangular windows with a band of half-lights above. A bronze sculpture by Bernard Meadows is supported by a plinth in front of the entrance. The side elevation facing Dyott Street has more pronounced modelling, with small balconies on the five main storeys at the north end, a glazed drum housing a horseshoe-shaped staircase to the basement, and a projection of the first floor beneath which is the Memorial Hall.

The interior is notable for its spatial arrangement and retains many original fixtures and fittings. The Memorial Hall is top-lit by glazed hexagonal coffers which are an integral part of its space-frame roof. Within the west wall of the courtyard is a pyramidal screen of green marble, serving as a backdrop to the Trades Union Congress War Memorial by Jacob Epstein, created between 1955 and 1956.

The building was widely considered, upon completion and since, to be one of the most significant institutional buildings erected in London and a landmark 1950s building in Britain.