Broadcasting House

Broadcasting House is a building of the 1930s and 1932, designed by Colonel G Val Myer and Watson Hart as offices and studios for the British Broadcasting Corporation. The north extension is not of special architectural interest. The building is constructed of Portland stone on a steel frame. It features a long frontage to Portland Place, a rounded end facing Langham Place, and an eastern return. The facades are shallowly modelled and exhibit a mixed Modernist-Georgian monumental style with stepped detailing. The building rises nine storeys with a four to six-storey corner clock tower pavilion. It is 35 windows wide facing Portland Place, and the rounded end incorporating the clock tower is seven windows wide. The main entrance to Langham Place is marked by bronze doors beneath a large lintel, with Eric Gill’s "Prospero and Ariel" sculpture in a niche above. The terminal pavilions to Portland Place have a shop front to the south and an entrance to the north, both topped by relief panels. The windows are vertically proportioned, with recessed metal glazing bar casements. Seven "porthole" windows are centrally located on the top attic storey facing Portland Place, and the upper stories are recessed at various levels with metal balustrades at the set-backs. Latticework masts stand over the clock tower, and behind it. The interior foyer has windows flanked by pilasters with glass capitals and a cornice carrying lights, with Eric Gill's "The Sower" sculpture opposite the entrance. The original innovative interiors and studio fittings, designed by McGrath, Wells Coates, Chermayeff, and others, were removed. The BBC, founded as a company in 1922 and later a public corporation by Royal Charter in 1927, has grown to become an internationally recognised public service broadcaster, initially reaching a small number of listeners, and by 1939, being listened to in approximately 75% of British households. The BBC began broadcasting high-definition television in 1936.