Portland House

For the former headquarters of Blue Circle, see Portland House, Aldermaston.

Coordinates: 51°29′51.3″N 00°8′30.1″W / 51.497583°N 0.141694°W / 51.497583; -0.141694

Portland House, Central London

Portland House is a skyscraper in Westminster, London. It is 101 metres (331 ft) tall with 29 floors and was completed in 1963.

The building has two banks of lifts — the first serving the first up to the fifteenth floor, and the second the fifteenth floor upwards.

Firms that currently use Portland House for office space include American Express, Crossrail, Caxton FX, HomeAway UK, Owners Direct, Increase the Wedge, NetBooster, Somo Global, TradeDoubler, uSwitch, Upmystreet.com, Reef Television, Rentokil Initial, AkzoNobel and Regus. Regus provides serviced offices to a number of companies.[1] The building once contained the head offices of British United Airways.[2]

The building is a five-minute walk from London Victoria station (mainline and tube) and a ten-minute walk from Victoria Coach Station. Difficult to find entrance but off Victoria Street, Cathedral Walk goes to main entrance. The surrounding area has been redeveloped between 2003 and 2005[3] with a new shopping and refreshments area called Cardinal Place. The building also has a gym in the basement.[4]

The building is part of the Cardinal Place Estate, which includes the shopping centre and development around the building. Retail establishments such as Marks & Spencer, Boots, Thorntons, Zara, Ha Ha Bar and Zizzi have taken retail space in the complex.

The ground floor has a portico arrangement of pillars which reflect the octagonal cross-section of the building.

The Portland House is substantially similar in design to the MetLife Building in New York City. The two buildings were under construction at the same time.

This building was successfully climbed by French urban climber Alain Robert in 2007.

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.regus.co.uk/locations/GB/London/LondonVictoria.htm?product=offices
  2. ↑ "World Airline Directory." Flight International. 28 September 1967. 530.
  3. ↑ http://www.sir-robert-mcalpine.com/projects/?id=362
  4. ↑ http://www.lafitness.co.uk/gym/london-victoria

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Portland House, London.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, November 12, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.