So here we are. Run to ground at last. British Telecom's Keybridge House. An interesting Observer article from 2007 rightly chastizes BT for not looking after the building but wrongly catorgorises it as an eyesore. That Julia Barfield says much the same thing is a depressing surprise.
Now, while I know the building really needs a clean up (think how beautiful all that stainless steel will look shining brightly in the occasional sunlight), this doesn't for a minute mean that it isn't a powerful and impressive piece of architecture in its current state - which I hope comes across in the photos despite the greyness of the day.
I had the absolute pleasure of working in Keybridge House for four months in early 2011 and I loved every minute of it.
ReplyDeleteWhile it hasn't been maintained as well as it might be, I always marveled at and wondered how beautiful and space-age it must have seemed in the early seventies as you walked to the front door looking up at its gleaming stainless-steel panels and the huge rocks placed by the front door. Star Trek springs to mind.
But the delights do not end at the front door. Once inside everything about it screams Sventies at you from the semi-grand stair case with its chrome banister to the Orange and Brown colour scheme in the loos. Not to mention the plumbing of the day which struck me as so charming and the fantastic views over London from the canteen on the fourteen floor with its ceiling to floor windows.
The building is so much of its time I half expected the Brady Bunch to stage a performance at any moment.
I can honestly say that I loved every minute of my time there and would love to go back again.
Sounds brilliant and makes me want to see inside. Do you think they'd entertain a guided tour?
ReplyDeleteJust looked again at my photos but can't see those huge rocks...sure you didn't imagine them??
Thanks for your reply but none of your photos show the main pedestrian entrance on South Lambeth Road.
ReplyDeleteTo see the rocks walk through the gates and note they are double gates and the outer ones,
black in colour and robustly built close to form a V shape with the pointed end facing
towards the street to ensure that not even an army tank could break through.
The taller gate directly behind it has those anti-climb contraptions on top of it.
Security is clearly of great importance.
Once past the gates walk along the tiled pavement and notice how beautiful the garden
must have been when it was well maintained and the lovely seating area to the right hand side.
Notice also on the same side how you can walk under part of the tower but the area seems
to be only used by feral pigeons these days.
Continue down the path and just before you get to the stainless steel and glass doors
you will see the Rocks on either side. They are about 3 by 4 feet (which are huge rocks to me)
and are either of sandstone or man-made, I could never figure that one out but lean towards
man-made for the purpose.
Now once you have seen all this you can easily imagine how Space Age it must have seemed
to its first occupants as they walked towards the entrance. The glass, steel, rocks and the
gleaming tower must have been an awesome sight in the morning sunshine back in the early seventies.
As for a guided tour, I suppose you could request one but I don’t know how it would be
received. Especially now that the building is almost empty and will soon be closed altogether.
I hope this helps to clear up the mystery of the rocks. I’m also glad I’m not the only one
who likes Keybridge House for what it is and at least one other person can see past the
grime and neglect.
http://tradescant.blogspot.com/2012/07/plans-to-redevelop-keybridge-house-take.html
ReplyDeleteThere are plans afoot for my favourite building... do we need to lobby?
Redeveloping Keybridge would be a real shame, I loved working there for the first four months in 2011. Perhaps we should lobby to save this wonderful building.
ReplyDeletehi Celia/Anon
ReplyDeleteI think we should, if you could email me direct at brutalismandbooze@gmail.com I'll have a think about strategy (or take your suggestions) and we can take it from there?
I work for BT, and used to work in Keybridge in the late 70's and early 80's. The gates someone mentioned are because this is a pre Thames barrier building, so the original gates were solid and water tight. That's also the reason for the strange raised stairs on the Lambeth road side, and the high, and very thick walls.
ReplyDeleteAs for the huge basements etc, yes, there is a ton of underground parking, that's where in years gone by the fleets of yellow vans were parked, but now it's got lots of security cages as equipment is removed from service and then stored before being sold.
In the 80's BT used it as a test site for several projects, for example, the first Cellnet cellular switch was in Keybridge, along with an early cell site, hence the extra security.
Inside it was an amazing building, the views are incredible, and when I worked nights, seeing the sun come up from the tower block windows was a sight to behold.
Sadly, there are not many photos of the inside, as this was pre cellphone camera times, and unless there was a special event the BT engineers didn't usually carry cameras.
Amazingly, at one time, like so many BT buildings of the early 80's, there was a full licensed bar in the building, so you will often find photos of birthdays etc being celebrated.
Now, it's a sad shell, and feels as run down inside as it looks outside. Personally I think it would make for an amazing conversion to flats, but I fear it will end up being torn down.
Guys, BT have gone in to Lambeth with a planning application to demolish the building and redevelop the site.
ReplyDeleteRef No: 13/03935/OUT
Direct link may work: http://planning.lambeth.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=externalDocuments&keyVal=MSAD06BO05W00
What a shame. Saw this building in the Luther finale, and found it quite striking.
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth did what was ostensibly an office building need those huge smokestacks for, though? I understand the building was made for the Post Office, is that where they incinerated the undeliverables and can't-be-bothered-to-deliverables? ;-)
Hi Ex Bt power manager here. The site contained huge mega watt rated generators to ensure autonomy, in case e of disaster or civil unrest etc. The stacks are the exhaust system for the multiple generator diesels
Deletehi Anon. Just been re-reading the posts related to Keybridge. It's an interesting collection of memories and maybe a few myths! I hadn't quite registered from your comment above that you must have been working for the contractor or demolition contractor. Would love to hear any stories from the demo that you remember or see any photos that you took.
DeleteMy father, Geoffrey Mills, the architect, whose funeral is today, told us that there were 5 floors of refrigeration equipment underground, to cool the largely electro-mechanical equipment involved in the nationwide telex switching Keybridge House was originally built to undertake. Perhaps the ''smokestacks'' were in fact the heat exhausts from the refrigeration? I can ask his remaining colleagues today.... It was Tony Benn, whose funeral is also today, who as Postmaster General, visited our house when my father's practice got the job. I was most uncharacteristically shouted at by my father, a kind and gentle man, for playing loud music upstairs while this critical visit occurred....
ReplyDeletehi Anthony - very sorry to hear about your Dad but many thanks for getting in touch. Love the story about Tony Benn! Can you remember what loud music you were playing??
ReplyDeleteNot sure exactly, but it was a Phillips battery portable record player. Could have been the Byrds album 'Younger than Yesterday' , Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, or maybe Love, probably Da Capo rather than Forever Changes. Or some such similarly seminal stuff....
ReplyDeleteMy brother Nich and I, at least, would like to find some way of visiting and viewing the inside of this building if at all possible before it is demolished. Might you have any idea please of who we could contact to try arrange this?
Not really familiar with Love - just listening to Capo via Spotify!..Don't know if I can help with the building visit but if you send me an email via this address brutalismandbooze@gmail.com I'll see what i can do.
ReplyDeleteHI guys,
ReplyDeleteWould you be able to let me know what films etc were filmed at the building? And did you ever get that trip?
Many thanks
Caroline
hi Caroline - don't know of any films featuring the building apart from the episode of Luther mentioned by gweil above. Re.the visit, i was contacted by one of the architect's sons asking if I could help organise a visit which I'd be happy to try to do but haven't had any subsequent contact from him so not sure if he's still interested. We'd have to get a move on though as consent for demolition was given by council recently despite our lobbying unfortunately!
ReplyDeleteThe huge "smokestacks" were for the 6 massive Rolls Royce powered emergency generators in the basement.
ReplyDeleteWhen they used to run these beasts up monthly to test them the whole building would vibrate.
As an apprentice (TTA) in the late 70's and early 80's I worked in several of the engineering departments in Keybridge House. I spent 5 years in Primex as a TO & TO(A) which was on the 2nd and 4th floor. We looked after customers equipment. Primex was an excellent place to learn datacomms in general working on all types of circuits and network management systems. It was a hands on job from cabinet work to running cables installing all different makes of multiplexers testing and commisioning and programming. It was a pro-active maintenance/repair role and I loved it. It was also the home of the International Packet Switching.......I remember working as an Apprentice in the basement where there were 2 huge diesel Generators that I believed come off battleships. The Power engineers would often power them up to make sure that they worked. A Great place to work...........And yes there of course was a great Subsidised restaurant on the top floor with great all round views.
ReplyDeletewe are in the proses of demolishing keybridge house if you need any photos just let us no.
ReplyDeletehi Anon. Just been re-reading the posts related to Keybridge. It's an interesting collection of memories and maybe a few myths! I hadn't quite registered from your comment above that you must have been working for the contractor or demolition contractor. Would love to hear any stories from the demo that you remember or see any photos that you took.
Deletewe are also trying to move the generators there are v3 of them weighing 80 tonnes each.
ReplyDeletewe think they was installed first and then they built around them.
hi Anon - thanks for getting in touch . Would be great to get photos of the demolition - send them over and will post them on the site.
ReplyDeleteKeybridge was also home to the Westminster District cash holding centre - were cash containers from payphones were stored before going to the Counting House. The key room was on the 12th floor as was a phonecard storeroom. In 1985/6 both these functions moved - cash boxes to Tufnell Park and Phonecards to Camelford House - next door to MI6
ReplyDeleteYour blog provided us with valuable information to work with. Each & every tips of your post are awesome. Thanks a lot for sharing. Keep blogging,
ReplyDeleteLoft Conversion in Kennington
I worked at Keybridge House on and off during the 2000s & 2010s as more than one of the contracts I worked on had a lot of mission-critical kit deployed in the data halls there.
ReplyDeleteBy then it was approaching the end of its life as a BT building, but you could still appreciate (just about - decay had really set in and dead pigeons had become a feature) how splendid it must have been when first conceived and constructed. Its sub-basements were indeed numerous, and there were rumours that it was also connected subterraneously to the SIS/MI6 building which is not too far away. Obviously the rumours were never substantiated.
My best memory of my time there was when getting a coffee from the top (17th) floor cafeteria (you couldn't call it a restaurant by then,) looking out of the window and seeing, not more than a couple of hundred metres away, two Apache gunships flying past at the same level!
I worked at Keybridge House when I was a BT apprentice TTA in 1981 to 1983. I used to commute to Waterloo from Woking and would pass Keybridge every day and was always amazed by the enormity of the building. I remember the cafe and bar area too and was a regular user!! I also worked at Columbo House at Waterloo and when I completed my apprenticeship I was put on Exchange Maintenance at Nine Elms exchange at Stewarts Road and went back occasionally to Keybridge House. In the early 2000's I was a Telecoms Consultant at Alcatel-Lucent and spent time back at Keybridge working on the 21CN programme. All happy times and a shame to see the building go.
ReplyDelete