Our buildings on Fenchurch Street

Lloyd's Register is one of the great City institutions, founded in 1760, with the same maritime and coffee-house roots as Lloyd's of London. Lloyd's Register has occupied the site on the corner of Fenchurch Street* since 1901 when Thomas Edward Collcutt completed a splendidly decorated Edwardian baroque palazzo. Ninety-nine years later, the Richard Rogers steel and glass towers building* was completed.

The two buildings belong to very different architectural worlds, yet each is characteristic of its time and a particular aspect of stylistic fashion. Encountering them together at close range from the former churchyard, which now serves as the new entrance court, is one of the most stimulating and enjoyable architectural experiences currently on offer in central London.

*By clicking on the links on this page you will be able to see more images of the building.

Rogers' glass and steel towers

Sleek, decoration free and transparently clear in its structure, the contrast with the Collcutt design could not be more obvious, or indeed more deliberately intended. The new building takes the place of an incoherent jumble of piecemeal additions to the 1901 building, that had grown up over the last century and largely covered the former churchyard of St Katherine Coleman. It is set to the south and west of the Collcutt building.

At the planner's insistence, the existing shell of flanking buildings had to be retained, making it difficult to ensure adequate natural light and efficient circulation. Rogers overcame these problems by building high, in the form of two glazed towers of office accommodation, 12 and 14 storeys tall, with another six storeys of additional space behind the retained facade of Lloyd's Avenue. The three towers, arranged on a fan-shaped grid (which produces slightly tapered floorplates) are connected by two soaring glazed atria which act as "climatic buffers", mediating between the external and internal environments, with naturally ventilated top vents that open in hot weather. The building also has automatic internal blinds, external shutters and chilled beams to help control the office environment, so avoiding the need for conventional air conditioning.

"Served and servant spaces" are a key item in many of Rogers' buildings and here, that distinction is marked by the astonishingly transparent steel and glass towers containing stairs and lifts which are attached to the concrete frames overlooking the entrance. Topped by lift-motor rooms - elegant objects in their own right - they give an exhilarating verticality to the building, as well as demonstrating Rogers' usual attention to engineering and design details. The use of colour - blue for the main structure, yellow for the stairs, red for the lifts - is particularly notable.

A door from the new Lloyd's Register reception leads to the retained and restored Collcutt interiors starting with the old entrance hall.

Collcutt's palazzo

Like Rogers, Collcutt (1840-1924) was one of the more prolific architects of his age, with a major City and West End practice. His projects included the Savoy Hotel, Wigmore Hall, the Palace Theatre, and the now demolished Imperial Institute in Kensington, as well as the interiors of several P&O liners. With generously rich clients, as here, he was not afraid to embellish his Venetian and French inspired designs with the work of the very best decorative artists of the period, many of them well-known members of the Art Workers Guild. In this building, Sir George Frampton (best known for his Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens) supplied most of the external sculpture and carved friezes, Sir Frank Brangwyn and Gerald Moira the various murals, and William De Morgan the tiles.

Throughout, metalwork, joinery and gilding are of the very highest quality with much use made of inlaid woods, expensive marbles and other costly materials such as bronze and mother of pearl, all intended to convey an impression of success and continuity and the opulent weight of Lloyd's Register's traditions.

Old library
The richly decorated library is accessed from the old reception hall. Mahogany bookcases, inlaid with rosewood and fruitwoods, line the room. This joinery is of high quality. The lightness of handling is an example of the newly fashionable reaction against the earnest designs of the earlier Victorian Gothic revival. The barrel-vaulted ceiling is elaborately stencilled by Shrigley and Hunt, incorporating nautical motifs, and the coat of arms of the great shipbuilding ports of the day.

A grand marble staircase, still covered with the original carpet from Maples & Co, leads from the old reception to the General Committee landing. A richly decorated bronze frieze by Frank Lynn Jenkins runs around three sides of the landing. This depicts maiden goddesses and the development of shipping from Viking longships to 19th century vessels.

An art nouveau-inspired bronze and marble sculpture, The Spirit of British Maritime Commerce, sits at the head of the stairs. It is a remarkable example of how arts and crafts, symbolist and art nouveau influences came together at this time. A visual representation of Victorian entrepreneurial industry harnessing aesthetic values to glorify their zeal for trade.

General Committee Room
On the landing, double mahogany doors lead into to the General Committee Room, one of the great Italianate interiors of pre-1914 London. This dazzling classical saloon is the architectural climax of Collcutt's building. The scale and quality of the decoration celebrate its status. As they should, nautical and maritime symbols abound. The barrel-vaulted ceiling and panels of the room are filled with glowing tempera paintings by Gerald Moira. The Italianate architecture of the room inspired Moira to produce a composition largely drawn from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Vatican. A Moira painting is framed over the chimney-piece on the west-end wall. The white relief underneath, by Bertam Pegram, was hidden behind a painting for many years as the Committee in the early 1900s disliked the chill pallor of the marble. The original furniture, three rows of curved tables and a crescent - shaped chairman's desk, was produced by Maples & Co to fit the room. The tables are now only used twice a year, for meetings of the General Committee.

Other images

• The Board Room off the first floor Chairman's corridor.
• The excavation site before the build of the Roger's building, where signs of occupation from the first century were unearthed.
• A bronze figurine of a seated sphinx was found in the debris of a second century building.
• Fenchurch Street in 1816, a sketch by Robert Blemmell Schnebbelie shows the row of buildings where Lloyd's Register now stands.