41 Albemarle Street, London W1

41 Albemarle Street is a seven-storey office block on the corner of Albemarle Street and Stafford Street, built as a flat-roofed modernist building with a cantilevered concrete frame. It was designed to maximise permitted accommodation on the site, including a small basement car park.

The structure is elegantly precise, reflecting the architect's strong sense of geometry. The frame is exposed at the rear in rough textured concrete. The main elevations feature a glazed curtain wall of black aluminium-framed window units with silver-grey spandrel panels, juxtaposed with flush stretcher bond grey stock brick used on the rear wall and narrow side panels.

The Albemarle Street elevation is glazed across seven and a half bays, with a narrow half bay clad in stretcher bond brick to the left. The Stafford Street elevation extends across twelve and a half bays, recessed at first floor above the side entrance. The upper floors are defined by a projecting slender glazing grid in dark grey and black aluminium, containing fixed lights and pivot casements above the silver-grey spandrel panels. At first floor, which was the upper floor of the original showroom, the glazing is lighter with chamfered glazed joints at the outer angles. The corner shop front features renewed plate glass set either side of a rectangular pier, originally in exposed concrete and now clad in vertical aluminium panels. The entrance has been relocated; its original position is marked by a flush polished granite threshold. A Thai Airways fascia (of no special interest) now covers the original concrete upstand which was originally lit.

A semicircular glazed stairwell projects from the rear elevation. The glazing is in single-glazed units matching the scale of the curtain wall. The stair itself is untreated grey concrete with a lighter coloured concrete lip above a deep incised band, appearing from outside to be suspended within the stairwell like a lift shaft. The stair features a steel balustrade, deep timber fascia panels, and slender handrails, continuing in simplified form internally to the basement.

The three-storey rear block is constructed in horizontal shutter-marked concrete, screened at first and second floors by vertical fins. This section has continuous aluminium-framed horizontal strip windows of fixed lights and casements. A moulded concrete parapet defines the roof terrace.

Internally, the greatest architectural interest lies in the stairwell, which remains unaltered, particularly the upper glazed section where the architect's precise detailing and colour scheme remain clearly legible. Rectangular structural piers originally exposed in concrete have been rendered and painted elsewhere. The spiral stair from basement to second floor showroom and Robin Day's interiors were removed in 1987-88 when Thai Airways acquired the building, before it was listed in 1995.