Former Poplar Town Hall (Bow House)

This former town hall, now a business centre, was designed by Culpin & Son and built in 1937–8. It stands at the acute-angled corner where Bow Road meets Fairfield Road. An attic storey added in the late 1990s is not of special architectural interest.

Exterior

The five-storey building has a steel frame with reinforced concrete walls faced in horizontal bands of Portland stone between long rows of metal-framed windows with plain surrounds. The ground floor plinth is clad in pre-cast terrazzo, chosen to withstand cleaning in what was described as "the fume and smoke-laden atmosphere of Poplar". Above this are panels of green Swedish marble. The fourth floor and tower are faced in brick.

The building exploits its corner site dramatically. The elevation curves around the acute angle at ground level like a ship's prow, with a low square tower set back behind. Along the prow are five stone panels carved by David Evans depicting workers employed in building the town hall: a welder, a labourer, a mason, a carpenter, and an architect. The architect appears in the central panel, which bears Evans's signature. According to the Illustrated London News of December 1938, Evans made sketches from life as construction progressed. The subject matter and methods reflect the social aspirations of Poplar Borough. As one alderman explained at the opening ceremony: "I believe that the future welfare of the common people is bound up with the development of a social conscience which will see not only in the work of high and mighty but in the labours of road menders and sweepers, social builders and engineers, miners and sailors."

The square tower rises above the sculpted panels, featuring a large vertical opening containing windows and cast lead panels. The assembly hall, originally located further down Fairfield Road, has been replaced by a block of flats.

There are three entrances: one for the former assembly hall on Fairfield Road, and two on Bow Road for municipal offices and councillors. The assembly hall entrance has been altered, though the low staircase tower above it survives. The Bow Road porticoes remain unchanged, retaining their heavy cast-bronze coffered doors, bronze lettering indicating original functions, letter boxes, and green Swedish marble-clad reveals. The councillors' entrance has a cantilevered concrete canopy balcony, originally designed for councillors to address crowds from. It is decorated with ceramic mosaics, also by David Evans. The underside illustrates Poplar's industries and the River Thames, while the balcony front displays the Borough's arms and child figures symbolising Art, Science, Music, and Literature. All windows are original, including bronze-paned windows on the ground floor.

Interior

The building has suffered losses to its historic fabric. Two principal areas—the assembly hall and council chamber—were demolished in the late 1990s. The mayor's parlour has been altered beyond recognition and is now a café. An excellent painted panel depicting a bird's-eye view of Poplar and its historic buildings, once located here, is reportedly in storage.

Other main areas survive well, though fittings are quite plain. Floor plans, with rooms accessed via spinal corridors and staircases at each end, remain largely unaltered. Principal areas of interest include: a foyer with stone floor, marble walls (hidden behind later studwork), and bronze lettering announcing various rooms; a gentlemen councillors' room with walnut panelling, wood-block flooring, doors, and skylight; a lady councillors' room with mahogany panelling and wood-block floors; committee rooms with coffered doors, partitions, and potentially original panelling beneath later studwork; two offices containing original panelling, doors, and patterned glass; concrete staircases with terrazzo surfaces; a ground floor circulation corridor with marble walls and fluted cornice; and upper floor corridors with oak-block floors.

Also in the building's possession, though not currently fixed to any wall, is a plaque from 1922 commemorating the Borough as "the great mother of common life and weal", moved from an older municipal building. A sand-blasted and etched glass screen by W.D. Suddaby and C.E. Fryer, formerly in the assembly hall, has been relocated to the foyer. It depicts Father Thames and the emblems of Poplar's three parishes.

History

The commission was originally given to Culpin & Bowers, an architectural practice with experience building town halls and socialist credentials favoured by the Council. The partnership dissolved before construction began, however, and Ewart Culpin and his son Clifford took over, dramatically revising Bowers's plans for a classical-style building.

Poplar Borough Council between the wars is one of the most famous councils in 20th-century British local government history, giving rise to the political practice of "Poplarism" and playing an important role in the Labour Party's development. The 1919 local election was the first time Labour won significant seats, becoming the largest party in twelve of twenty-eight London boroughs. The breakthrough was most pronounced in Poplar, where they won 39 of 42 seats. George Lansbury became Poplar's first Labour mayor, served as local MP from 1922–1940, and led the Labour Party from 1931–1935.

The defining episode was in 1921, when the Council withheld rates revenue meant for the Metropolitan Police, the London County Council, and other cross-London authorities, devoting the money instead to social reform and poor relief. This included equal pay for men and women and a minimum wage for Council workers far exceeding market rates. Thirty councillors—including six women—were jailed indefinitely for refusing a court order to remit the funds: the men in Brixton Prison, where they continued holding meetings, and the women in Holloway. After public outcry, the councillors were released and rates for rich and poor boroughs were equalised through an Act rushed through Parliament in late 1921. "Poplarism" has since described local authorities challenging central or national governments or providing generous poor relief. Though Poplar's radical socialism never became mainstream, many reforms have since been enacted nationwide, including equal pay for men and women (1970) and a national minimum wage (1999).

This dramatic incident influenced the town hall's design over a decade later. Funded by a loan from the Ministry of Health and the London County Council on the basis that consolidating all council services would improve efficiency, it was considered inappropriate to lavish money on grand municipal pride as was common in town hall architecture. Culpin recounted at the 1937 foundation stone laying: "there was to be no extraneous ornament on the building, that by its mass and proportions and by its flowing lines it should stand or fall, and I am bold enough to say that this is the first town hall in this country to be erected in the modern style." The proposed design faced criticism for austerity. Alderman Key responded at the 1938 opening ceremony: "[if] the building were in reality a super factory transferred from Slough or the Great West Road ... what of it? In so far as a factory was a place where worthily by the work of man's head and hands the desires of his heart could be made living and fruitful that was what they wanted ... this should have been a veritable palace of the people had not Poplar been so poor, but here it is, a worthy workshop for the worker's welfare."

The building was celebrated for its architectural interest. Architectural Design and Construction called it "one of the most remarkable town hall buildings of recent times". The Builder devoted five illustrated pages to its design, the Architect and Building News nine. It made an impact in the popular press too: the Star on 24 August 1937 asked "Ought a Town Hall to look like a factory, a workshop? Poplar's is the first in this land to provoke the question." At the foundation stone laying, the hope was expressed that they "not only lay the foundation stone of the new Town Hall but better still the keystone of Poplarism." George Lansbury, a central figure in Labour Party history, presided at the opening ceremony. For the architects and councillors, the building manifested the Borough's ethos and activities—the culmination of what they saw as a decade of progress.

While lacking classical embellishment, the town hall was not short of artworks, notably five bas-relief panels along the prow and a mosaic canopy over the members' entrance. Both were by David Evans (1893–1959), who exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1921 and was sculptor-in-residence at Michigan's Cranbrook Foundation (a Mid-Western version of Devon's Dartington Hall) in 1929, executing important New York commissions during this period. Back in Britain, his work included the frieze on Wandsworth Town Hall, a sculpture entitled "Dawn" for Welwyn Garden City, and (after the Second World War) the replacement Gog and Magog in the Guildhall, destroyed in the Blitz, as well as these panels and the mosaic canopy at Poplar Town Hall. He was a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.

This building is listed for its special architectural interest as the first town hall built in pure modern style, designed by the noted architects Culpin & Son, with continuous glazing bands and a curved bow front; for its good quality materials including brick, terrazzo, green Swedish marble, and stone with bronze doors, fixed lettering, and windows; for significant artworks testifying to inter-war Poplar Borough's aspirations, including a remarkable set of bas-relief panels by David Evans; and for its special historic interest through connection with the inter-war Poplar Borough Council, one of the most famous in 20th-century British politics and local government, trailblazers of some aspects of post-war welfare reform.