Futuristic, yet a monument
It is rare for a building less than 30 years old to be listed by English Heritage as one of half a million protected monuments. And for a work by a living architect to be included among the 10,000 structures that are officially designated as grade one, i.e. »of exceptional interest«, is not merely unusual, but unique. Richard Rogers achieved this distinction with his Lloyd’s Building of 1986, which gained grade-one listing in 2011.
Seen from Leadenhall Street, the Lloyd’s Building towers above its neighbours and rebukes their conservative, early 20th-century stone façades with expanses of grey metal. External glass lifts, water pipes and ventilation ducts rise up the shiny surface, and conspicuous blue cranes for the window cleaners perch on the roof. The design principle is that of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which made Rogers and his former partner Renzo Piano famous: everything that is hidden in conventional architecture – lifts, staircases, the building services – is boldly displayed on the outside, in order to create an uncluttered, adaptable interior space.
Info
Address 1 Lime Street, EC3M 7HA | Public Transport Monument (Circle, District Line) | Hours Open only during the Open House Weekend in September; for images see www.lloyds.com/lloyds/about-us/the-lloyds-building| Tip Opposite the Lloyd’s Building stands a new high-profile work by Rogers, the 224-metre Leadenhall Building (2014), known as the »Cheesegrater« thanks to its sloping façades.
When it was inaugurated, the 88-metre-high building (95 metres with the cranes) was all the more provocative for being the new home of a revered 300-year-old institution. Lloyd’s of London evolved from Lloyd’s Coffee House, which by 1688 had become a place for merchants and sea captains to exchange news and, increasingly, to conclude insurance agreements. Lloyd’s is not a company but an association of independent insurers. Trading is done on the ground floor of a 60-metre-high atrium, around which three office towers and three towers for building utilities are grouped. The interior is by no means entirely high-tech in appearance: the Committee Room on the 11th floor, originally a dining room designed by the great 18th-century architect Robert Adam, was transferred here from the old Lloyd’s Building.
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