Sampson House
| Sampson House | |
|---|---|
 Front view of Sampson House on Hopton Street | |
  | |
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Brutalist |
| Location | adjacent to Blackfriars railway bridge |
| Address | Hopton Street, Southwark |
| Town or city | London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 51°30′27″N 0°06′11″W / 51.5075°N 0.1030°W |
| Current tenants | IBM |
| Construction started | 1976 |
| Completed | 1979 |
| Client | Lloyds Bank |
| Design and construction | |
| Architecture firm | Fitzroy Robinson & Partners |
Sampson House is a commercial office building in Hopton Street, Southwark, London, United Kingdom. It is sited just west of the Tate Modern art gallery, by the railway lines running onto Blackfriars Bridge and fills a block between the Thames and Southwark Street.
Sampson House is a rare example of a Brutalist commercial office building, with powerful massing, extensive use of exposed concrete with minimal glazing at street level and strong horizontal mirror glazing in austere dark metal cladding in the projecting upper levels. It was built in 1976-9 as a processing centre for Lloyds Bank and was designed by Fitzroy Robinson & Partners (now Aukett Fitzroy Robinson) which was also architect for the construction (and refurbishment in 2004-6) of 50 Queen Anne's Gate in Westminster.
Minerva plc announced in August 2005 that, in a linked transaction, it had completed the sale of Sampson House for £150.5 million and Ludgate House for £78.5 million to a private investor. The announcement also stated that "Sampson House comprises 386,288sq.ft. of office space let to IBM UK Limited. The lease expires in December 2025 but, includes a mutual break clause in June 2018. The current rent is £8 million p.a. and will rise to £9.5 million p.a. in December this year". IBM utilises the building's extensive and deep basement levels to host data centres for the company's London based customers, with recovery facilities utilising the above-ground office space.[1]
The nearest Underground station is Southwark on the Jubilee line.
The long, windowless corridors of Sampson House are thought to have provided the inspiration for the famous 'hallway scenes' in Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'.
On 8 October 2013, Southwark London Borough Council approved plans to build an apartment building complex, at the Sampson House and Ludgate House sites. The heights of the planned apartment blocks ranges from 5 to 49 stories.[2]
References
Architect (London), The South Bank: Sampson House - Lloyds Bank's new operations centre; Architects: Fitzroy Robinson & Partners vol. 125, no. 6, 1979 June, p. 14-18
Building, Finance factories - two large computer centres in the heart of London: 1. Lloyds Bank Operations Centre Sampson House, on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge; Architects: Fitzroy Robinson & Partners; 2. National Westminster Bank Services Centre, Alie Street, E1; Architects: Elsom Pack & Roberts Partnership vol. 236, no. 7090 (22), 1979 Jun 1, p. 24-26.
- ↑ http://www-935.ibm.com/services/uk/gts/pdf/sampson_house_site_flyer.pdf
- ↑ Stothart, Chloe (2013-10-09). "Sampson House and Ludgate House development given green light by Southwark council | News | Construction News". Cnplus.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-10-29.