Centre Point
103 New Oxford Street, Central London

Height: 117m
Floors: 35
Built: 1967
Architect: Richard Seifert


Links:
http://www.urban75.org/london/centrepoint.html
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/rem/london/thumb_pages/centre_point.html!
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=110678


Notes:
One of London's very first tall buildings - and controversial at the time - Centre Point stands at the eastern end of Oxford Street at the junction with Tottenham Court Road.

On completion, it proved unpopular and remained unlet for fifteen years. The construction cost was over £5 million.

It is now a Grade II listed building.

Often derided for its cramped, windswept, pedestrian-unfriendly base, there are rumoured to be plans for a makeover and refurbishment of the area, which could include new towers adjacent to it.

Centre Point is currently the tallest building in the West End and shares the same architect as Tower 42 (formerly the NatWest Tower), the tallest building in the City of London.





http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/rem/images/centre/p0000729.jpg!





http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/rem/images/centre/p0000721.jpg!





http://www.willfox.com/images/skyscrapers/centrepoint1.jpg





http://www.willfox.com/images/skyscrapers/centrepoint2.jpg





http://www.willfox.com/images/skyscrapers/centrepoint3.jpg





http://www.willfox.com/images/skyscrapers/centrepoint4.jpg





http://www.willfox.com/images/skyscrapers/centrepoint5.jpg

Would have been better suited to the City of London and just looks out of place from Tottenham Court Road. 6

8.5/10

One of London's most underrated landmarks in my humble opinion.

The only problem is the base ... they need to build some kind of podium or canopy that shelters pedestrians from the down-drafts. More space between the building and the traffic roaring past would also help - maybe they could remove those fountains at the front?

Other than that, I really like the building. I don't normally like this style of architecture but Seifert seems to have pulled it off really well - it looks nice from both the front and side. The facade is detailed and has a nice texture.

The high floor count:height ratio makes the building really soar. I remember the first time I walked past it, and couldn't believe how enormous it looked from street level.

separate feelings bout this block, give it an 7.5 for its design i guess

Coming out of the Tottenham Court Road underground station my face was like :eek2:

London needs a lot more scrapers in this area, but I guess that´s a taboo.

Impressive, nice glass, a 9/10

7.5/10. I prefer Euston tower to be honest :)

Very Nice.....10 points....!

:) :cheers:

I despise this building. Sorry. But it's that awful area around the base. How can a building completely destroy the flow of Oxford St. I personally can't think it is more possible to ruin the flow of London's greatest shopping street any more than this building has. The base is void, ugly, un-usable and totally pedestrian unfriendly.

To cap it off, wasn't this building left intentially empty for most of it's life?

A picture I took myself last time I was in London. I love that city!!

http://www.metrobcn.com/visor.php?x2048x1536x954592.jpg

Got to give it credit considering the year it was built.

It has a nice articulated facade and has slender proportions - a landmark for the Tottenham Court area.

8/10

8.5 I like it because in person it looks taller.

6.5/10 The facade is quite interesting, but the building is still quite lame IMO

i see it every day on my way to school and still am not bored with it.

i like it's slenderness and how it towers over oxford st. but, contrary to what justme said, i think there are a lot more problems with oxford st than centre point (filth, layout etc).

i agree the base is pretty crap, but they do have that nice bar/club/pool place called 'room 101' or something.

i think, if this building was given a good cleaning, it'd do a whole lot more for it.

7/10 btw

Very sexy and very 60`s and great to use as a point of reference when lost so it totally suits its name Centre Point!

Impressive !! 9/10

6.5/10

IMO, this underatted icon of london is also a great design for its time, and still looks half decent today. The area does need a refurb tho.

8

6/10

Interesting. 8/10

I despise this building. Sorry. But it's that awful area around the base. How can a building completely destroy the flow of Oxford St. I personally can't think it is more possible to ruin the flow of London's greatest shopping street any more than this building has. The base is void, ugly, un-usable and totally pedestrian unfriendly.

To cap it off, wasn't this building left intentially empty for most of it's life?

yeah it was left empty intentionally (read the copied and pasted bit below)

also do like it. However the way it went about being built and what we ended up with at the base, which is how the vast majority of us interact with it is a disgrace. This was speculative building coupled with poor planning control at its worst!

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/re...tre_point.html!

The Oxford Centre for Real Estate Management
London - Offices

Centre Point:

Henry Pearlberg, a property dealer and mill owner from Lancashire, was declared bankrupt in 1943 and again in 1956. His wife, Beatrice, throughout this period was a shareholder in a variety of private property companies, as were their sons Henry and Paul Pelham. One, or other, of them featured in a series of court cases: Pearlberg v Refuge Assurance 1938, Pearlberg v Public Trustee 1940, Pearlberg v May 1950, Pearlberg v Commission of Inland Revenue 1953, Pearlberg v Penfold 1955.

In 1949 Bertrice acquired a requisitioned building in Bloomsbury Street. In the same year a manufacturing company, owned by Bertrice, bought 15 - 19 Lawrence Place. In June of 1949 the same company took a lease from the Crown Estate on the frontage to New Oxford Street Nos 93 - 109.

In July 1956 the LCC decided to clear-up the intersection of Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road, New Oxford Street, St Giles' High Street and Charing Cross Road by building a roundabout.

To build the roundabout the LCC needed the Pearlberg / Pelham land. So under the Metropolitan Paving Act it served not one, but two, Notices to Treat on them. Unfortunately it could only offer compensation based on pre WW2 values and because it had used two Notices the Lands Tribunal had to brought in to adjudicate on which one was valid.

Two years later everything was still stuck. Then Richard Edmonds, Chairman of the LCC's Town Planning Committee, was introduced to Harry Hyams who offered to buy the site at current values for the LCC in exchange for an unwritten 'Land for Planning Permission' deal. The agreement had to be unwritten because it was against the law to sell planning permission. The substance of the deal was that Hyams could transfer the plot ratio for the whole site to the bit of it he wanted to build on, which worked out at exactly twice the 5:1 ratio normally permitted.

On the 12th August 1959, four days before the Town and Country Planning Act 1959 came into force, Hyams' architect, Richard Seifert, sent in the design and planning application noting that while the LCC should feel free to suggest amendments that it was nevertheless "important that the bulk of the building should not be reduced."(q.d. Marriott, 1989, p.114). This Act outlawed the practice whereby developers sought and often got planning permission on land they did not own, but which, with the permission, was worth a great deal. As planning permission rarely made front page news this meant that developers often did the landowners, who were in total ignorance of the existence of the planning permission, the favour of reliving them of the burdens of ownership at a reasonable price. Since coming to his agreement with the LCC Hyams had acquired most of the rest of the site so to avoid complications the documents arrived on the 12th.

The LCC granted the application in November and the detailed planning went on for a further year, whilst Hyams' agents continued to buy more property. In March 1962 all of this was handed over to the LCC which promptly signed a lease which paid it £18,500 per annum for the fixed period of 150 years with no upward review.

Construction of the 385' tower began, the second highest in London at the time. As it is hard to disguise the construction of such a tower, questions were asked about what it was that was being built. One of these questions came from the Royal Fine Art Commission, the body that was meant to approve the plans for all buildings of importance in London. The LCC agreed that the RFAC should adjudicate on such buildings, but that it could only do so if the building was referred to it in the first place, and this one hadn't been referred.

In the year that the Tower - Centre Point - was finished the Ministry of Transport announced a new road flow system for London: Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road were made one-way streets, which in turn meant nobody needed the roundabout.

Centre Point became notorious because it remained empty for years. The economics of this was that, as rents were rising so sharply, it was better to leave it empty than rent it out and tie its value down to a particular rent review period. This was because the capital appreciation was greater than the lost rental income. It's construction cost in 1964 was £5.5 million whilst its estimated market value in 1973 was £20 million. The icing on the cake was that as it was empty it was not liable for rates.

One of the neighbouring streets. Pic by LSyd.



http://www.pbase.com/lsyd/image/33220252.jpg

7/10 nice :)

i love it...a great landmark and a beautiful building. i didn't find the base that bad feeling, except for the flow of walking around it from one direction that took me by the bus stop.

10/10.

some pics:

http://www.pbase.com/lsyd/image/33220491/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/lsyd/image/33220617.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/lsyd/image/33220026.jpg

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i don't know,
The facade is very interesting
OK, 7.5/10

8.0

The first 30+ storey tower I saw with my own eyes.
I like the no BS 60s design, the mix of concrete and large windows.

I like the no BS 60s design, the mix of concrete and large windows.

This for me says 'london' like no other scraper

8/10 Interesting facades and all but looks a bit dated.

8/10 he looks like a little bit a little motparnasse tower

8/10

interesting facade

http://www.globalphotos.org/london/20041226/DSCN4225.jpg

DEL

I walk past it several times a day and still love it. Its a wonderful building. I even love the base and that cool area under the podium where all the buses come round. The only problem I have there is not real with the tower but with the lack of easy pedestrian crossings.

10/10

6/10 out of style

The design is good and inovative for a modernist building.
7/10

7.5/10

7/10 - it´s ok.

8 very nice building. :cheers:

I've lived very close to this tower and it definetely looks better than on photos. 9/10!

lovely, 9.5/10

6/10

8.5/10

I like centre point.

For its time is a great design and has aged well....the base needs some work, but the tower looks great.

Its also a great landmark for working out where you are around oxford street and Soho

It's simply beautiful :cool: 9/10

being born in london, it's one of the first or maybe the first tall building my eyes popped out. so 9/10

Sexy, graceful and beautiful!

So few 1960's buildings look anything other than ugly, but Centrepoint still looks funky and modern today. 10/10, one of my favourite talls anywhere!

fantastic building. Always helps me when im not sure where i am, an ideal point of reference.

8/10. When I was in London earlier this summer, I passed this building many times. We could also see it from our room.
It looks so modern that I thought it was brand new, I was very surprised it was built already in 1967!

8/10. When I was in London earlier this summer, I passed this building many times. We could also see it from our room.
It looks so modern that I thought it was brand new, I was very surprised it was built already in 1967! It also looks much taller than it is.

8/10. When I was in London earlier this summer, I passed this building many times. We could also see it from our room.
It looks so modern that I thought it was brand new, I was very surprised it was built already in 1967! It also looks much taller than it

I don't like Richard Seifert's projects, but this one is one of his best. 6/10

6.5/10 ;)

7/10

8/10

Nice facade. 8/10

7/10

9,5/10

7/10

7/10

6/10

Another London building in the wrong spot. The building is actually quite attractive, but it just destroys that part of Oxford Street. Bad planning.

The base is quite ugly and pedestrian-unfriendly, but the tower itself is great. I love the textured facade, the proportions are nice, it's a decent height and has aged well. It's iconic and serves as a "focal point" for the West End. If you're ever lost, then sometimes you can see it poking above the rooftops, which gives you a better idea of where you are. :)

Probably the best 60's tower in London (and there aren't many decent ones).

8/10

6

A lil bit too old-fashioned IMHO

Probably the best 60's tower in London (and there aren't many decent ones).

That's absolutely right... - 7.5/10 Mostly for it's age and design and it's good to see in the flesh too.

I really love these 60's highrises. Great facade and clean top.

8/10

8,5/10

Meh, it's Ok I s'pose.

7 from moi.

Best building in london!

Nah do not like this one! a 6 out of 10.

8/10...one of those classic London towers that i don't think is perfect but i would never get rid of it as its so AMAZING...and one of those funny things that i love about London

really nice for a 60s-tower!! 8/10

6/10

8.5

Wonderful iconic concrete forms, massively let down by the notorious base.

Nice! 8/10

9/10

8/10
Very Londoner!
:okay:

6/10 ;)

The view from Oxford Street. Taken today with my brand new camera -


http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b387/wjfox2005/Centre-Point-1.jpg

10 best London building from the 20th Century.

6/10

8/10

10/10 very good

7/10

10/10

6/10

8/10

8/10

8. Good building. Regards.

7/10

8/10

8/10

It looks massive for its height, it's got some real soar. I really like it and it creates a landmark for the area - it just needs a bit of a makeover. :) 8/10 from me.

8/10

8/10

8/10

8/10

7/10