London’s Victoria district gets an architectural make-over

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Rosalind Ormiston visits 62 Buckingham Gate, London, SW1, to see how this part of the city is being transformed

The landmark building, 62 Buckingham Gate, Victoria, London SW1, designed by the respected architect Larry Ng of the architects Pelli Clarke Pelli, USA, replaces a drab group of 1960s high-rise government offices on the corner of Victoria Street and Buckingham Gate. The 11-storey building with spectacular angled glass façades fronting 257,000 sq. ft., of mixed-use office and retail space, is the launch of a new architectural era in this part of London.

Inside the building at street level, two art installations – by Stuart Haygarth and Grayson Perry – are displayed in the beautifully designed reception space, created by Debra Lehman-Smith of LSM Design. Impressive views from the roof garden – one can see St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral, Battersea Power Station and Buckingham Palace – are for its occupants only but at ground level there are retail shops, a sculpture garden and a café for the public.

For some years now Victoria, in central south-west London, sandwiched between Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, has been noticeable for its railway station, and 1960s/’70s high-rise buildings, mixed in amongst the remnants of Victorian-Edwardian pubs, theatres and private mansion blocks of flats, all creating a disjointed environment. The Victoria area is now part of a major restructuring by Land Securities, which intends to transform the working environment for companies moving to Victoria, and the ambience of the neighbourhood for local residents, workers and tourists, with new shops and café spaces integrated as part of the building design ethos.

Londoners are used to new buildings popping up throughout the city so why is 62 Buckingham Gate notable? Larry Ng, working alongside British architects Swanke, Hayden, Connell, seeks to impress. The building is a showcase for 21st-century architecture and, in a street of mixed-bag buildings, No.62 stands out. Its glass cladding, with a composition of horizontal banding and bronze elements, is Ng’s ‘homage’ to the polychromatic brick and stone patterns of the local Victorian-Edwardian architecture, particularly Westminster Cathedral. The architects’ design plan highlights the difference between this beautifully designed building, sympathetic to its surroundings, and the design-by-greed, high-rise apartment blocks that litter the waterfront further down the Thames.

Land Securities’ addition of prestigious art installations draws attention to the reception space at ground floor level. British artist Stuart Haygarth was commissioned by the company to create a light sculpture, a 3.5-metre chandelier Optical Chandelier Sphere, which he made – with his team of four assistants – from 70,000 recycled spectacle lenses suspended by 2700 strands. It is a larger version of an earlier work. The reflection from the spectacle lenses creates a shimmering globe of light in daylight and a glorious state-of-the-art ‘glitter ball’ at night. Haygarth’s fascination with re-using discarded objects is a key factor in his work, and much evident here. At floor level, pale grey leather roundels of seating draw the visitor to the space and accentuate the shape and beauty of the sphere above. 

On the other side of this reception area a quite different space and atmosphere is created by Grayson Perry’s wall tapestry The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal, 2012. Land Securities purchased one of Perry’s six tapestries from the series The Vanity of Small Differences, 2012, with its narrative partly inspired by William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress (1733). With coloured sofas and chairs placed around small tables an intimate space is constructed to sit and observe the tapestry. The series relates the story of class mobility, reflecting Perry’s understanding that social class influences aesthetic taste. In the purchased tapestry, the ‘rake’ (Tim Raikwell) is pictured with his family in the kitchen of their second home; he has just sold his business venture to Richard Branson. As in Jan van Eyck’s painting The Arnolfini Portrait (1434), wealth is symbolized by the convex mirror and discarded shoes.

The astute choice of Perry and Haygarth as artists to be associated with this new building was inspired. Their work contrasts and complements, and creates separate focal points for visitors and passers-by to enjoy. Land Securities has a design director with a fine knowledge of art that can hold its own in a commercial space. If you are in London, take a look for yourself.