Bush House Centre Block with flanking colonnades

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement to amend the name, address, text and sources on the 23 August 2022 TO 3080 NE 60/21 and

3081 SE 73/5

CITY OF WESTMINSTER ALDWYCH, WC2 (South side) Bush House Centre Block with flanking colonnades

13.9.76

G.V. II

Headquarters offices. 1925-35, by the American architects Helmle and Corbett. Portland ashlar on steel frame, slate roofs. Monumental composition "big-business classicism" closing Kingsway vista. Six storeys and attic. Three windows wide. The centre bay is taken up by a full height, coffered semi-dome, giant niche, screened by two huge Corinthian columns carrying an entablature surmounted by symbolical figures of England and America sculpted by Malvina Hoffman. Plain outer bays with flat arched recessed metal casement windows. Broken pediment and recessed attic storey above. Three bay colonnade-screens flank the centre block. The Strand elevation is a more restrained design with deep, central, straight-sided recess beneath the pediment, similar flanking colonnades.

Bush House was the headquarters building of the BBC World Service from 1940 to 2014, housing all the BBC’s foreign language services. Since the early C20, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has grown into a public service broadcaster of international repute. Aiming to inform, educate and entertain, the BBC plays a prominent role in British life and culture. The BBC was formed on 18 October 1922 as a Company, with the responsibility to provide a public radio broadcast service in Britain. It is the world’s oldest national broadcaster. The BBC’s first broadcast was a news bulletin on 14 November 1922. At first the daily six hours of news and entertainment programmes reached perhaps only tens of thousands of listeners.

The Company’s growing national importance was recognised when it became a public corporation by Royal Charter on 1 January 1927. Expansion of the BBC’s transmission station network, continuing increases in airtime and growth in the number of people owning a radio set licence meant that, by 1939, BBC programming was listened to in about 75% of British households. The BBC began broadcasting the world’s first regularly-scheduled high-definition television service on 2 November 1936. By the time of the BBC’s centenary in 2022, its radio, television and online services were being used by on average five million adults every minute of the day and night.

Listing NGR: TQ3074281008