黑洞社区

In the year that saw the tallest building in Western Europe, the Shard, reach its full height of 310m, we thought we鈥檇 take a look back in our archive at another skyscraper that made its mark on London鈥檚 skyline.

Richard Seifert鈥檚 National Westminster or NatWest Tower became the tallest building in the UK when it topped out in 1977 at 183m and remained the tallest in the City of London until it was surpassed by the Heron Tower in 2009.

黑洞社区鈥檚 architectural correspondent Ike Ijeh says of the building: 鈥淎dmirably, Tower 42 as it was renamed, is now one of the few in the London that offers public access to its summit. It also introduced the super-tall US-style commercial skyscraper into the UK and without it it is highly unlikely the City would have built the Gherkin or Heron Tower.

鈥淎lthough now a modern City symbol, its impact on London鈥檚 skyline widened the chasm between the City鈥檚 historic fabric and its tall buildings, a gap that later developments and the sustained lack of co-ordinated high-rise planning policy have left us no closer to bridging.鈥�

We dug out the feature that 黑洞社区 ran in 1977 on the project. It touches on some of the controversy around the tower: 鈥淭he proposal to building Britain鈥檚 tallest solid structure in the context of the carefully controlled skyline of the City of London was bound to cause a good deal of argument. Ever since planning permission was granted to the then National Provincial Bank for an office tower in Old Broad Street, controversy has raged about the predicted visual impact of the building.

鈥淲ould it or would it not dominate St Paul鈥檚 when viewed from the river? Now that the building has been topped out we know that the answer is, not surprisingly, that it depends where you stand.鈥�

Here鈥檚 how the published feature looked:

The complexities of delivering a project of this scale were noted in detail: 鈥淎 project of this scale demands the use of the latest construction techniques in order to overcome the enormous problems posed by the decision to put 60,000m² of floor space in the form of a 180m tower on a constricted and inaccessible 10,000m² site.

鈥淎lmost every element of the building  - founations, concrete core, steelwork and services 鈥� involves some kind of innovation or advanced technique.鈥�

There is also some sympathy for the workers: 鈥淭he flooring used on the steel beams is Metecno permanent shuttering. Fixing is a rough job and Metecno itself did not want the job鈥� now a team of 鈥榝lying Scots鈥� has taken over. It is a rough job because manhandling, cutting and shoot-nailing steel sheet in a March gale is no fun, and flying because they commute to and from Glasgow each week.

鈥� 鈥� From the main contractor鈥檚 point of view one of the biggest problems is the lack of space on the site for the storage of the enormous quantities of materials required: 3,000t of structural steel, 100,000t of concrete, 12,000m² of glass, 13 km of stainless steel 鈥� the figures speak for themselves. The storage capacity of the site is almost negligible and a nationwide network of storage yards has had to be coordinated and programmed with little room for error.鈥�

鈥淲alking on late you realise at once that this is no ordinary job. There are no clear spaces, walkways are narrow, there are men everywhere, and dominating the whole site is the enormous concrete core thrusting out of the ground and reaching up to and past the equally enormous cantilevers.鈥�

The tower has since been criticised for this huge core, as Ike Ijeh says: 鈥淲hen finally complete, the tower鈥檚 problems continued. Its cantilevered construction required an enormous core, leading to a gross/net floor ratio of breathtaking inefficiency. Incredibly, the tower offers roughly the same amount of floorspace as the 25-storey 99 Bishopsgate next door.

鈥淭his rendered it incapable of accommodating the large trading floors required in the City before the 1986 Big Bang. Its famously constricted ceiling heights as well as the similarity of its floor-plan to the NatWest logo (always denied by Seifert) also attracted derision.鈥�