Empire House

Empire House

This very large building of four-and-a-half storeys plus basement and attic occupies a triangular flat-iron site at the junction of Thurloe Place and Brompton Road. It is constructed of red brick and Portland stone with a slated and asphalted mansard roof.

The building comprises three main blocks constructed in two phases. The first phase, completed by 1911, includes the five-bay entrance block adjoining the Rembrandt Hotel on Thurloe Place (block A) and the long, curving eight-bay range to Brompton Road with its short return to North Terrace (block B). The second phase, built from 1915, filled the triangular gap between the two earlier parts with a domed corner block and its angled return wings of three and four bays to Brompton Road and Thurloe Place respectively (block C). The left-hand part of the North Terrace range also belongs to this second phase.

As originally built, block A formed the main public entrance to the complex and contained a luxuriously fitted entrance and reception hall on the ground floor, with the managing director's office and boardroom on the first floor, and further offices and a flat designed for the use of any of the company's customers in case of emergency on the floors above. Block B contained arrival and dispatch rooms on the ground floor with access to a large covered yard for the accommodation of motor-cars and lorries entered from North Terrace; smaller offices arranged along corridors filled the upper floors. The principal offices migrated to the first and second floors of block C when completed, with showrooms at ground level. Each block contained its own stairway and lift. The basement and attic storeys throughout were used for storage and packing. These arrangements were radically altered around 1925 in a conversion that installed shop units on the ground floor and divided the upper floors into flats.

The architectural style is florid Free Baroque with much sculpted decoration in Portland stone set against red brick, intended to reflect Aston Webb's slightly earlier front range to the Victoria and Albert Museum, diagonally opposite on the north side of Thurloe Place. The various ranges are each slightly different in character but are unified at ground level by a continuous stone arcade whose dividing piers are emblazoned with wreaths in the form of winged car tyres, a motif that recurs throughout the building.

The entrance block facing Thurloe Place (block A) is a tightly composed unit of five narrow bays. The lower two storeys and the attic are faced in channelled stone and the intervening floors in red brick with stone quoins and architraves. The main entrance, now opening into one of the shops, has an extravagant Baroque surround with pilasters and triple keystone, surmounted by a scrolled and swagged pediment, a large winged tyre wreath and Michelangelesque reclining figures. On either side are pairs of arched windows with triple keystones; that to the far left has been made into a doorway giving access to the flats above. A balcony balustrade spans the second floor, interrupted in the centre by a canted window bay that rises through the full height of the building to form a saucer-domed cupola at roof level.

The Brompton Road range (block B) is more relaxed in treatment, with broader bays divided on the upper floors by banded brick and stone pilasters. The slightly projecting outer bays are stone-faced with second-floor balconies and shaped gables above, flanked by miniature obelisks. On the return to North Terrace is an archway giving access to the former covered yard, above which is a relief displaying the Continental insignia of a rampant horse in a winged roundel, accompanied by a scroll inscribed 'CONTINENTAL TYRE AND RUBBER COMPANY'.

The corner block (block C) forms the architectural climax of the ensemble. The curved corner section is entirely stone-faced with two giant Ionic orders set one above the other—rusticated pilasters below and engaged columns above—supporting a heavy octagonal cupola. At ground level is a doorway with a lugged surround and projecting cornice; this once contained a revolving door and formed the main entrance to the showrooms but is now glazed in as a shop window. Canted metal-framed bay windows protrude between the columns of the upper order. To left and right are framing bays with shaped gables and curved swag-fronted balconies. The connecting wings to Brompton Road and Thurloe Place are treated similarly to block B, but without the banded piers and with large tyre wreaths set between the third-floor windows.

The interiors were comprehensively remodelled around 1925 with shops at ground level and flats above. With the exception of the three main staircases, few original features now remain. The ground-floor reception room in block A has been partitioned to form a shop and a lobby to the flats, with only fragments of its rich plasterwork surviving. Behind this is the main stairway with ornamental iron balusters and square mahogany newels topped with ball finials. The stair in block C adjoins this and has a more delicate balustrade of wrought-iron scrollwork without newels. In the rear part of block B, accessed from North Terrace, is a third, much plainer stair. The central archway in this range gives access to a covered yard with glazed pitched roofs. The upper-floor flats have panelled mahogany doors set in simple Classical architraves, presumably installed in 1925.