Simpsons

Simpsons, a men's outfitters now functioning as a department store, occupies Nos. 30 and 34 Jermyn Street and Nos. 203-206 Piccadilly. Built in 1935-6 by Joseph Emberton with Felix Samuely as structural engineer, it represents one of Britain's finest department stores of the 1930s and a principal example of the Modern Movement applied to commercial architecture.

The building employs a welded steel frame clad in Portland stone, one of the first two such structures in Britain, comparable in date with the De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill. The flat roof to Emberton's building was raised behind its parapet in 1962 by Leo de Syllas of Architects' Co-Partnership.

The principal Piccadilly facade features a ground-floor shopfront spanning more than 60 feet, with patent non-reflecting concave display windows set in black marble on either side of a central recessed display case (a later addition) and chromed steel-framed entrance doors emphasised by a cantilevered canopy. The first to fourth floors are given strong horizontal emphasis by one long window divided into three bays with bronze-cased mullions. The stone aprons are faced with Portland stone slabs tipped slightly outwards to receive soft neon floodlighting from curved bronze troughs set as continuous eyebrows above the windows. Vertical stone-faced panels on each side frame the composition and carry bracketed bronze flagstaffs. The fifth floor is recessed to create a terrace and is protected by a full-width concrete canopy inset with glass block panels, obscuring the sixth and seventh floors from most street views.

The rear facade on Jermyn Street is treated as a well-proportioned stone-faced wall with strong perforations. A wide double-height window comprises a set-back mullion glazed window over black marble-framed shopfronts and a central door. This double-height space subtly marks a change of levels between Jermyn Street and Piccadilly. The first, second and third floors display a regular tripartite glazing pattern to the left of an escape stair on the south-east corner, with windows linked by continuous stone cills. Upper floors are set back behind balconies.

The building contains showrooms on five storeys plus basement, each an open space divided only by two pairs of columns. Sixth-floor offices and staff rooms occupy the roof. The innovative electrically welded steel structural frame is organised in a square grid of four rows of columns, denoted by two pairs of columns on each floor partially dividing each space into three sections. Travertine floors run throughout. The gracious staircase at the centre of the west wall features travertine steps with rough-cast plate glass balustrading secured by widely spaced aluminium balusters and surmounted by an orange vermilion coated circular handrail. The stairwell is fully glazed with ribbed opaque glass.

The original "Simpson Piccadilly" lettering, with the letter 'P' shared by both words, was designed by Ashley Havinden in 1936-7.

Leo de Syllas's staff recreation room, constructed on top of Emberton's building, is an innovative lightweight structure of steel panels with a fused-on stone dust surface, designed to remain discrete and unobtrusive without damaging the integrity of Emberton's original building.

The interior represents a remarkably complete surviving example of 1930s moderne style. The building stands as an immaculately composed, innovative and well-preserved exemplar of the Modern Movement, the work of the principal English architect to build commercial premises in this idiom and one of his foremost works.