The Quadrant

TQ 2980 NW & NE CITY OF WESTMINSTER REGENT STREET, W1 70/86 ; 71/2 (West side) 30.5.72 Nos. 49 to 63 odd. The Quadrant (including Nos. 9 to 18 consec. Piccadilly) G.V. II Quadrant of offices and shops and stores. Part of the south western half of Sir Reginald Blomfield's grandiose rebuilding of Nash's Quadrant, designed from c.1910 taking Norman Shaw's neo-Baroque set piece of the quadrant elevation of his Piccadilly Hotel (Piccadilly q.v.) as key and scale and completed 1920-23. Stone-faced, slate roofs. Podium embracing ground floor and mezzanine, 3 storeys above and dormered steep mansard. The podium has bold pulvinated rustication to its articulated piers, ashlar upper floors with windows in flat surrounds; rich modillion eaves cornice, continuous range of dormers in roof which has bronze ridge cresting; prominent banded and corniced stone stacks. The penetration of Air Street is marked by a rusticated semicircular arched bridge with open giant 3 storey Doric columned loggia over, a la Somerset House. The Quadrant composition is terminated by slightly advanced pavilions with concave pyramidal cupola roofs. The eastern end of the Quadrant includes the former Swan and Edgar's store (Nos. 9 to 18 Piccadilly) in which Blomfield develops the pavilion design towards Piccadilly Circus with 3 bays and a 9 bay return to Piccadilly. To the Circus, a pulvinated and channelled podium with an arcade embracing ground floor and mezzanine, above which are 3 storeys read as 1 ½ with tall, through storey, segment headed and hooded windows, ashlar faced with giant rusticated pilaster strips. Rich modillion cornice and attic storey with swags and festoons; close set dormers. The first return bay to Piccadilly is similarly treated. Beyond, the 8 bay composition differs in the treatment of podium and attic; the end bays are slightly advanced as pavilions with elevations similar to those facing the Circus and the Quadrant terminal pavilions, crowned with the same concave cupola roofs.

Listing NGR: TQ2948280626