The Quadrant

The Quadrant is a block of offices, shops, and stores built between approximately 1910 and 1923 as part of a substantial rebuilding project by Sir Reginald Blomfield, designed to replace an earlier structure by Nash. It occupies the southwestern half of the area. The design draws heavily on the neo-Baroque quadrant elevation of Norman Shaw's Piccadilly Hotel, using it as a key reference for scale and style. The building is stone-faced with slate roofs. It incorporates a podium that extends to the ground floor and mezzanine level. Above this are three storeys, with dormers in a steeply pitched mansard roof. The podium features bold, pulvinated rustication on articulated piers, while the upper floors are ashlar, with windows set within flat surrounds. A rich modillion eaves cornice runs along the top, and the roof has a continuous range of dormers and bronze ridge cresting. Prominent, banded, and corniced stone stacks are also present. A rusticated semicircular arched bridge marks the penetration of Air Street, and it is topped by a large, three-storey loggia with giant Doric columns, reminiscent of Somerset House. The composition of the Quadrant is emphasized by slightly projecting pavilions with concave pyramidal cupola roofs. The eastern end includes the former Swan and Edgar’s store (Nos. 9 to 18 Piccadilly), where Blomfield’s pavilion design extends towards Piccadilly Circus, encompassing three bays and a nine-bay return to Piccadilly. Facing Piccadilly Circus, the building features a pulvinated and channelled podium with an arcade wrapping around the ground floor and mezzanine, above which are three storeys that appear as one-and-a-half, with tall, through-storey, segment-headed, and hooded windows, faced in ashlar with giant rusticated pilaster strips. A rich modillion cornice tops the building, and an attic storey is decorated with swags and festoons, punctuated by close-set dormers. The first return bay to Piccadilly mirrors this style. Further along, the eight-bay section differs in the treatment of the podium and attic, with the end bays slightly advanced as pavilions, having elevations similar to those facing the Circus and the terminal pavilions of the Quadrant. These are crowned with the same concave cupola roofs.