65 and 65a Basinghall Street

65 and 65a Basinghall Street

This former exhibition hall, magistrates' court and offices building was designed and constructed between 1966 and 1969 by Richard Gilbert Scott of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Son and Partner. It has since been converted to offices.

The building is a concrete-framed structure with in-situ concrete construction and pre-cast facing panels to its elevations. The panels are of polished white cement with Capstone aggregate, creating a milky cream colour. Vaulting over part of the building is formed from pre-cast concrete. Windows and glazed openings have bronzed metal frames, with some later replacements in a similar colour.

The building's plan is complex, with multiple split levels and varying footprints. The building line follows the inside corner where Basinghall Street turns from running north-south to running westward, and is roughly L-shaped in plan above street level. To the south sits a raised terrace which steps down to street level. The Basinghall Street level, accessed from the east, extends beneath the exhibition hall, first floor offices and raised terrace. This level originally housed the magistrates' courts, associated administrative offices and cells on a half-level beneath, with two to three levels of car parking below. The first floor has a significantly smaller footprint and comprises two elements linked by a canopy: the former exhibition hall, now 65a, to the west (entered from the south via the raised terrace), and first floor offices to the east (entered from the Basinghall Street entrance below). A canopied gap between these two elements provides access to the high walkway crossing over Basinghall Street.

The building's most distinctive feature is its curved concrete vaulting, which forms the roof of the exhibition hall to the west. This vault steps up to form part of the roof of the eastern element and provides a canopy over the gap between the two sections. It rests on elegant, tapering columns and dramatically over-sails the building's elevations, terminating in dynamic effect as if in mid-flight.

The east elevation facing Basinghall Street is slightly cranked and comprises several volumes. Glazing is broken down into narrow strips by vertical concrete fins divided horizontally by a smooth storey band, running up the face and overshooting the flat roof to create a toothed parapet. An internal stair is expressed externally as a curved, unfenestrated tower. The north corner is slightly set back with a glazed entrance beneath a segmental arch, echoing the shape of the over-sailing concrete vault above. Beneath the vault is segmental clerestory glazing. The first floor features narrow strip windows, while the north elevation has an irregular arrangement of punched openings and a run of vertical strip windows at ground floor. At first floor level is the wide walkway forming a bridge across Basinghall Street. The former exhibition hall is lit by T-shaped clerestory glazing beneath the over-sailing concrete vault.

From the raised terrace, the eastern elevations continue the use of vertical fins, strip windows and smooth unbroken concrete surfaces. The concrete vaulting is supported on narrow square columns that taper upwards. These columns are freestanding where they support the canopy over the walkway, and glazed between to enclose the former exhibition hall, with glazing inserted to accommodate a floor inserted into what was originally a double-height space.