The Economist group (including office tower, residential block, former bank and podium)

The Economist Group

This group of three linked buildings – an office tower, residential block, and bank – occupies nearly half an acre in London's St James's, bounded by St James's Street to the west, Ryder Street to the south, and Bury Street to the east, with the Grade I listed Boodle's club of the 1770s to the north. The three main buildings are connected by a raised podium that creates an irregularly-shaped piazza, with a small three-storey extension to Boodle's forming a fourth element of the composition. Access to the podium and buildings is via steps and a ramp from St James's Street, and steps from Bury Street (reconfigured in 1990). Beneath the podium lie a car park accessed from Ryder Street and an annexe to Boodle's club, which originally also housed a short-lived staff restaurant.

The structures are built with an aluminium-clad reinforced concrete frame and roachbed Portland stone facings, with anodised aluminium window frames throughout.

Each of the three main buildings is planned on a square with canted corners. The four-storey bank building occupies the south-west corner, with its north-east corner sliced away to enlarge circulation space. At street level are shops and the bank entrance foyer, from which escalators rise at an acute angle to the banking hall on the first floor, now used as a restaurant. Its double-height space features a grey marble floor. The sixteen-storey office tower, the tallest building, stands at the south-east corner with its main entrance at podium level opening into an expansive lobby set behind a colonnade. The original post room at street level has been converted to shops. The standard office floor plate originally comprised small two-person units around the building's periphery with a circulation corridor enclosing a square service core containing lifts, stairs, and toilets. This arrangement survives in some areas, though other floors are now open-plan. The top floor, originally a penthouse flat for the Economist group's chairman, has been converted to offices. The eight-storey residential block stands at the north-east corner and can be accessed from the podium or via Boodle's. The first four storeys contain single-bedroom chambers for Boodle's members, the next three are individual flats accessed from the lift and shared staircase, and the top floor is now used for offices.

Externally, all three buildings receive uniform treatment. The concrete frame is clad in grey enamelled metal with narrow Portland roach slabs attached to the mullion-columns and larger rectangular slabs in the storey panels. The gaps between slabs are carefully emphasised to underline their non-structural character. Set-back plant rooms at the top of each building are also clad in vertical stone strips.

The buildings' distinctions are expressed through scale and proportion, using variations on a standard 10 feet 6 inches module. The bank building is the smallest but most expansively proportioned, with undivided bays of 10 feet 6 inches. Facing St James's Street, its height and proportions respect the neighbouring Georgian buildings including Boodle's, with storey heights doubled on the ground and first floors to create a piano nobile effect. The office tower maintains 10 feet 6 inches bays with central window mullions establishing an intermediate scale. At podium level, its glazed entrance foyer sits behind the colonnade line; this was partly enclosed during 1990 alterations when the foyer was enlarged and revolving doors and canopy added. The residential tower functions as a scale model of the office building with eight storeys to the office building's sixteen, and half-width bays of 5 feet 3 inches containing vertically sliding sashes. It too has a glazed foyer at podium level within a colonnade. The three-storey extension to Boodle's on its northern blank wall, added simultaneously with the main group, matches their detailing.

The podium is surfaced in long Portland roach aggregate slabs. The approach from St James's Street uses steps and a ramp divided by a chunky stone balustrade. The Bury Street steps, originally two converging flights, were remodelled as a single flight in 1990. Podium outer walls are faced in large Portland roach slabs with glazed shop-fronts on Ryder Street and Bury Street. A bench alongside Boodle's is formed from a single large stone slab.

Interior spaces have been substantially altered. The former bank building retains its twin escalators rising at an acute angle from the entrance lobby to the banking hall, a double-height space with grey marble floor. The office tower's entrance lobby was enlarged and renewed in 1990 with Portland roach finishes. Office floors contain modular plasterboard partitions that have been relocated, renewed, or removed in many areas. The most important fixed feature is a continuous glazed box on the partition line between offices and circulation corridor, designed to allow borrowed light into the corridor, provide artificial light via concealed fluorescent tubes to both spaces, and form part of the air filtration system. The top floor, originally the director's flat, is taller than others with clerestorey lighting beneath the ceiling line; all original domestic fittings and partitions have been removed. Office fittings and WC finishes were renewed in 1990 and are generally not of special interest. Fittings and finishes in the residential block have also been substantially renewed.