CHAPTER X. The Second World War and Post-War Development
The effect of the Second World War on the work of the
LCC was very much greater than that of the Great War.
Since 1919 the LCC's responsibilities for hospitals and
care of the elderly and sick had increased; under the
emergency legislation it was to act as the co-ordinating
authority for London, and as ideas for post-war planning
developed, it became the major partner in shaping rebuilt
London. These two roles were to bring another round of
staff increases, with consequent extensions to County Hall.
At the end of the Second World War the LCC was
faced not only with the need to complete the blocks on
the east side of Belvedere Road (fig. 50), but also to
reinstate considerable areas of damage to County Hall
itself. The building had been involved in over thirty
'incidents', nineteen of which occurred within its
precincts. (fn. 1) The most serious was on the night of 19–20
September 1940, when a high explosive bomb made a hole
30 feet deep and as many feet across in the Members'
Terrace, shattering all the windows and causing a good
deal of internal damage (Plate 42a). Though 200 people
were working in the building at the time, there were only
two fatalities. As The Times reported:
In the council chamber most of the windows were blown out
and the chairman's seat leaned forward to where it had been
pushed by a massive door blown in on it. The dome over the
entrance to the chamber was smashed and the carpet beneath
strewn with glass ... Many of the staff continued at their work
after the explosion, carrying on by the light of torches because
of the black-out curtains having been destroyed. (fn. 2)
Although the damage affected about 160,000 square feet
of office space, more than two thirds of this was soon
brought back into use after temporary repairs. (fn. 3)
The 1940 bombing affected the Crescent particularly
badly and had also destroyed staff dining-rooms and kitchens on the sixth and seventh floors. Space for these
functions had to be found elsewhere, and other accommodation was rendered temporarily unusable. Considerable structural repairs were required and those still
outstanding in the Crescent in 1950 involved the taking
down of:
over 5000 of the existing stone and brick walling ... to varying
levels, in some cases down to the top of the first floor windows,
together with the major portion of the attic storey, the main
entablature, and over 5000 of the stone columns to their bases. (fn. 4)
The process of reinstating war damage was a prolonged
one, not being completed until the late 1960s, and was
carried out in parallel with plans for completing the
County Offices (now known as North and South Blocks –
see below) and the schemes for setting out the adjoining
part of the South Bank. (fn. 5)
Post-war Schemes for the South Bank
After Labour's election victory in 1934 the Council had
taken steps to acquire the parts of the South Bank between
County Hall and Waterloo Bridge which it did not already
own, intending to replace the industrial and commercial
premises there with a modern town planning scheme –
including a riverside park and cultural buildings. This was
part of their attempt to put into practice the provisions of
the 1932 Town and Country Planning Act. The acquisition of the land was a slow and difficult process which
brought out several defects in the Act, and no firm
development plans were made before the war.
In response to Lord Reith's request in March 1941 for
Reconstruction Plans, (fn. 6) the LCC commissioned the County
of London Plan, prepared by J. H. Forshaw, Architect to
the Council from 1941 to 1946, and Sir Patrick Abercrombie, Professor of Town Planning at University
College, London. Forshaw's predecessor, Frederick
Hiorns, who had retired on grounds of age, after two years
as Architect to the LCC, was thanked warmly by the
authors for his 'very valuable pioneer work'. The Plan
appeared in 1943, and was followed by the Greater London
Plan in 1944.
In addition to the general principles laid down to guide
post-war reconstruction and redevelopment generally,
which affected the development of the area round County
Hall, the authors made specific proposals. They collected
together and rationalized the various projects which had
been developed within the LCC and outside it, and incorporated these into their plan for the South Bank. They
called for the replacement of Hungerford Bridge – Charing
Cross Railway Bridge by a road bridge and the construction of a tunnel to take trains beneath the river, while
the South Bank was to become a 'great cultural centre'. (fn. 7)
After the war the LCC brought in the distinguished
architect, Charles Holden (1875–1960), as planning consultant. The choice was not so much theirs as that of
the Ministry of Public Building and Works, who were
interested in using the South Bank for government offices.
Holden was preparing plans for the whole South Bank
from Westminster Bridge to Bankside, and his brief from
the LCC in 1947 was to act as architectural and planning
consultant for the general layout of the area. His studies
were to be based on approximate schedules of accommodation for the various buildings proposed, including
the layout and massing of buildings, access and traffic
arrangements, provision for the parking of vehicles,
general directions as to the type of building materials to
be used, 'and all other matters which the Consultant may
with the concurrence of the Architect ... of the Council
... deem necessary to be included'. (fn. 8)
While generally accepting the Abercrombie-Forshaw
road layouts, Holden felt their detailed proposals were
flawed, observing, in his Report to the LCC of June 1948,
that it appeared that 'the area had been planned piecemeal,
more with a view to disposal of sites than to beneficial
co-ordinated planning', and asking for 'a free hand in
replanning the area'. In fact, his proposals to integrate the
existing County Hall buildings into his layout involved
making physical modifications to them. He thought the
river-front Crescent the worst part of the composition,
suggesting the addition of an attic storey and parapet built
up on the existing wall, with a second attic storey rising
on top of that, but set back six feet. The flèche would be
re-erected at the lower level. His reason for proposing
these changes was simple. He wanted County Hall to
resemble the buildings he was hoping to see erected to its
north along the river:
From the architectural point of view the harmony and scale in
the buildings along the Riverfront would be greatly enhanced:
for the existence of a high pitched roof with the inconvenient
accommodation resulting is out of character with the nature and
spirit of modern frame construction.
He then set about replanning the layout of sites and
internal roads, suggesting that Belvedere Road to the north
of County Hall be realigned and widened, both for reasons
of improved access to the proposed office buildings and
to give a better view of County Hall. The LCC's officers
pointed out, however, that this would mean reducing the
length of the proposed extension to North Block along
Chicheley Street by 65 feet, with a consequent loss of
office space. Yet there was no sign that they regretted the
architectural implications of the idea. On the contrary,
they agreed that this change would result in 'a more
dignified and architecturally satisfactory entrance to Belvedere Road from County Hall Courtyard' – the new
name used by the LCC officers for the southern stretch
of Belvedere Road which had been closed in 1948. (fn. 9)
So began the disintegration of Hiorns's pre-war plan,
in which the internal façades of the returns to the North
and South Blocks were seen as a means of focusing attention on the Belvedere Road entrance to County Hall, and
of making a place there. The post-war planning schemes
of Holden and Robert Matthew, Architect to the LCC
from 1946 until 1953, were to turn the extension of North
Block along Chicheley Street away from the County Hall
buildings, and address it to what was anticipated to be a
much more exciting group to the north. The County of
London Plan provided for office development to the north
of County Hall as far as Hungerford Bridge, with a park
laid out along the river front. Theatres and concert halls
were to be further north next to the approach to Waterloo
Bridge. These planners therefore felt justified in thinking
that the north façade of North Block ought to have a
strong architectural relationship with this area, and that
the County Hall Courtyard was of secondary importance.
In time this plan influenced the decision to hold the
Festival of Britain Exhibition on the South Bank, a festival
first mooted in 1943 as a centenary celebration of the
Great Exhibition of 1851. The original scheme was for an
international affair to be held in Hyde Park, and even
when it was made a strictly national event, the South Bank
site, of only thirty acres, was opposed in many quarters
as being too small. But the site had two advantages. Firstly,
the LCC had decided to build a concert hall there in any
case, so providing a major facility at no expense to central
government, who were to finance the Festival. Secondly,
it had a strong advocate in Herbert Morrison (1888–1965),
the best known pre-war leader of the LCC, now Lord
President of the Council, who was in charge of setting up
the Festival of Britain. The South Bank site was selected
in 1949.
Post-war Accommodation Problems
A decision about permanent war damage reinstatement
was deferred in the autumn of 1947, when it was felt
that the Ministry of Health, responsible for financing
the repairs, was unlikely to provide the necessary funds
immediately. Nevertheless, the Architect was instructed
to proceed with all preparatory work in readiness for
more favourable times. Temporary repairs continued since
additional accommodation was needed for a number of
reasons, one of them being the demolition of No. 23
Belvedere Road, for the South Bank Scheme, which displaced 200 staff.
Space was also needed because some departments were
expanding, in particular those of the Architect, the Valuer,
and the Director of Housing. Also to be considered was
the old question of centralization of staff, of whom about
ten per cent were housed away from County Hall. There
were still 300 at Spring Gardens, the lease of which would
expire in 1958, and not only would renewal be costly, but
the buildings would remain, in the opinion of the Chief
Officers, 'not very suitable for office purposes'.
A report prepared early in 1950 distinguished between
the short term problem of the best way to utilize the
existing space at County Hall, and the long term one of
providing additional accommodation to meet the needs of
the increased staff and the transfer from Spring Gardens. (fn. 10)
When the County Hall competition was held in 1907,
space standards had been put at something over 100 square
feet per person, but over the years this had fallen. Lower
standards were being recommended generally in government circles. A mean of 80 square feet per person was
adopted in the 1950 report, producing the equivalent of
an increase in floor area in the building of over 57,000
square feet, enough to house 720 extra staff.
Much of the building was 'poorly provided with natural
light', but the adoption of strip lighting was a means of
eliminating a distinction between actual and useful floor
area which had been employed until that time. By artificially lighting this formerly 'dead' space, a further gain
of 21,000 square feet was made.
But the long-term problems could not be solved by
arithmetic and electricity alone. In addition to the 300
staff at Spring Gardens, 200 staff occupied temporary
offices on the Principal Floor, the jealously guarded province of Members and Chief Officers. (fn. 11) Much of the extra
accommodation could have been provided by the reduced
space standards, but for the extensive war damage which
was still to be repaired. Replanning the main building
according to lower space standards was, in any case, meant
to be a short term measure.
Thus, the completion of the North and South Blocks,
which had been indefinitely postponed in 1938, became
almost inevitable, although an immediate start was out of
the question. There were government restrictions on office
building, but informal talks with the Ministry indicated
that the LCC would be given sympathetic consideration
as soon as economic and industrial conditions improved. (fn. 12)
Though the Chicheley Street site was needed in the short
term as a car park for the Festival of Britain, the extension
to the North Block represented the most significant piece
of accommodation, providing room for 750, and for that
reason alone was most attractive to the Council. The
North Block stopped well short of the realigned Chicheley
Street, leaving space for another 85,000 square feet, while
the South Block already extended around the corner on
to Westminster Bridge Road, leaving only 30,000 square
feet to be built there, which would accommodate 300 staff.
Thus, an estimated 1,050 spaces for officers would be
provided by the new buildings, and 1,013 were needed.
Costs were put at £902,000 for the North Block Extension and £503,500 (including £125,000 for land acquisition) for the South Block Extension. The building time
was estimated at thirty-eight and thirty-three months
respectively. For war damage reinstatement the cost was
estimated at £785,000, the major part of which would be
paid for by the War Damage Commission, and the time
at thirty-nine months. A provisional timetable suggested
that the North Block should be completed between 1952
and 1956, and the other works between 1957 and 1961,
after the North Block Extension had been occupied. (fn. 13) At
the beginning of August 1950 the Council passed estimates
for the work in full with a liability on capital account of
£1,280,000 for the extensions to North and South Blocks,
excluding land acquisition, and approved £737,500 for
war damage reinstatement. (fn. 14)
Fig. 50. North and South Blocks as built, 1936–1963. Post-war
sections are indicated by stippling. A North Block Extension
(1955–8); B South Block Extension (1960–3)
The Completion of North Block
By the spring of 1952, although the Ministry had not given
permission for the Council to proceed, a modification of
the pre-war scheme had been prepared by the Architect's
Department. The project, nominally under the control of
the Architect, Robert Matthew, was being run by Edwin
Williams (1896–1976), an architect who had worked for
Sir Guy Dawber, and then on the Festival Hall together
with Matthew himself, Leslie Martin, and Peter Moro. (fn. 15)
Williams was a senior member of the Building Regulations
Division, who had been appointed Senior Architect for the
County Hall extensions, a post he held under successive
Architects to the LCC, including the two successors to
Matthew, (Sir) Leslie Martin (1953–5) and (Sir) Hubert
Bennett (1955–71). (fn. a) Other members of the team were
C. H. Bates, R. A. Laker and C. G. Shankland.
Hiorns's pre-war plan had to be modified, for the
decision to widen Belvedere Road reduced the space available and there was now a requirement for about 8,000
square feet for a branch of the Westminster Bank. (fn. 17) Moreover, the Council architects were keen to promote their
own ideas. They needed to convince the Establishment
Committee to go along with them, and produced a report
with this in mind. They presented three alternatives to
the Hiorns plan, rather confusingly known as schemes 3,
4 and 5. Having noted that the 1930s plan envisaged the
North and South Blocks completing an 'architecturally
related precinct', with road barriers at the Westminster
Bridge Road and Chicheley Street ends of Belvedere Road,
they went on:
The shortening of the North wing ... with enhanced possibilities
in the development of the adjoining land between County Hall
and Charing Cross Viaduct and the widening of York Road,
now present an opportunity to explore less formal and more
flexible arrangements for satisfying accommodation requirements. (fn. 18)
Scheme 3 was a truncated version of the Hiorns block,
its end pavilion missing to allow the widening of Belvedere
Road, and with a capacity for 707, rather than 838 staff.
Scheme 4 was designed to restore all the accommodation
of the block, and more. As the report continued:
the elevational freedom would allow of greater freedom in construction, internal planning, and arranging the accommodation
economically and flexibly.
The extra cost of scheme 4 over scheme 3 was estimated
at only £50,000, largely because different methods of
construction and thinner detailing would be cheaper. But
the building would have risen eleven storeys to parapet
level, twenty-five feet higher than the North Block adjoining it.
Scheme 5, preferred and recommended by the Architect, depended on sleight of hand. If the Committee were
to rescind their decision to shorten the block in accordance
with Holden's plan, which had anyway been much altered,
it would be possible to provide the full accommodation at
a reduced height. This was ostensibly a return to Hiorns's
scheme, retaining his layout and section, but omitting
his architecture, which would be replaced by something
'fresh, distinctive and contemporary'.
When the Establishment Committee eventually reported to Council, in the summer of 1954, they presented only two schemes for consideration. One was the
abbreviated Hiorns project (scheme 3), the other a new
design for a stylistically modern building which kept the
cornice line of the earlier work but tucked an extra storey
into an immensely tall roof. Accommodation in this second
scheme was for 760 staff compared with 707 in the first. (fn. 19)
The more up-to-date scheme was chosen and shortly
afterwards the Ministry gave its go-ahead for work to
begin.
The tender of Gee Walker & Slater Limited was, at
£659,331, the lowest received for building the extension
and was approved by the Council at the end of November
1955. (fn. 20) Problems arose over tenders for steelwork, all ten
firms tendering the identical sum of £50,238 19s. 3d., and
the LCC decided to recommend to central government
that the matter be referred to the Monopolies Commission. (fn. 21)
The South Bank and the County Hall site were not
completed according to Holden's grand design. Already
modified by Robert Matthew and Leslie Martin, in the
intervening years it had been lost sight of. Shell redeveloped their own land without much relation to the rest
of the area, and further problems arose over the site for
the National Theatre, with repercussions on the development of County Hall.
The National Theatre had its origins as the Shakespeare
Memorial National Theatre, and for many years its promoters tried to get it built in South Kensington, with
Lutyens as architect. After Lutyens's death in 1944, both
architect and site were changed, the foundation stone
being moved in 1951 to the new site just to the north of
County Hall, on the present location of Jubilee Gardens. (fn. 22)
The new alignment of Chicheley Street was altered to take
account of this, and laid out at a slight angle to the north
front of County Hall, to allow oblique views of the theatre
when built. By the time the site for the National Theatre
was moved once more, Chicheley Street had been laid out
on this new axis, as had the extension to North Block. Both
were set, like broken bones by an incompetent surgeon,
according to mistaken principles. A slight aesthetic lameness can be detected to this day.
The extension to North Block was completed in the
early spring of 1958, and was not well received (Plate 44).
The architectural critic J. M. Richards was particularly
harsh, describing it as 'this senseless cliff of solid-looking
stonework', a 'most unfortunate design' and a 'compromise that falls between all possible stools'. (fn. 23) Outlining the
respective cases for completing the 'Giles Scott' scheme
and building something quite different, Richards blamed
Council Members for forcing a compromise, apparently
unaware that Matthew and Martin had both recommended such a move in the early 1950s. Indeed, to
Richards the compromise went further than just the building, marring the LCC's reputation for an 'architectural
policy which in the last ten years has brought so much
credit to them, and has been admired all over the world'.
He saw the building as being 'in several practical ways
less satisfactory even than the Scott building which was
its starting-point'. Many of the fashionable architectural
devices employed do indeed impinge upon the convenience of the building in use. Loadbearing columns had
not 'freed the plan', as modern architecture demanded
they should, but merely cluttered it up by being too close
to the walls, which themselves had the appearance of
loadbearing structures. The offices (Plate 44d) are worse
lit than those of the Hiorns-Scott building, partly because
of the adoption of rectangular windows and the peculiar
treatment of the end walls. But, as Richards pointed out,
this under-lighting is only partly due to the refusal, 'presumably for stylistic reasons', to provide larger windows,
'it is chiefly due to the width of the building being far too
great'.
Richards was an advocate of the 'stylistic unity' theory
proposed by Holden and his followers, assuming that the
North Block was to become part of the larger South Bank
rather than the County Hall precinct. In defence of the
option for a 'modern' solution to the extension block, he
claimed this function for it:
It had the additional role of providing the background to the
new South Bank development and should conform to it in style,
which there was then every reason to hope would be a frameand-cladding rather than a masonry style. Although the end
elevation of the Ralph Knott wing also faced the new site, this
was due later to be partly blanketed by the National Theatre.
Fortunately, the anticipated 'blanketing' of the impressive northern façade of County Hall never occurred, leaving
clearly visible one of the best elevations on the South
Bank. This would certainly not now be seen as an embarrassment, and with the current public image of the
Modern Movement, perhaps the position has been
reversed, at least for the time being.
The completion of the North Block was significant in
a practical way, for it was suggested to the Council in 1957
that it presented an opportunity to re-group the office staff
in a more modern arrangement. (fn. 24) The original system
placed Heads of Department on the Principal Floor, easily
accessible to Members and conveniently located for
attending committee meetings, while the staff of their
departments were organized vertically above them in the
building. This system logically called for a building that
could expand vertically with a growing organization, but
of course this was impossible, and departments found
themselves scattered in many parts of the County Hall
and its extensions. The Council therefore decided to
change the system and allocate accommodation so that
each department and its Chief Officer would be together.
The Completion of South Block
The 1950 building programme had assumed that the completion of North Block would provide enough space for
the decanting of staff while war damage repairs were
carried out, as well as for the centralization of office staff
when the lease of Spring Gardens expired. The increasing
numbers of central office staff, which had reached 6,568
by 1957, now made this impossible, so it was suggested
in that year that the South Block be completed. If started
immediately there was a good chance the building could
be finished by the early months of 1962. (fn. 25)
It was accepted by the Council that the new wing
alongside Westminster Bridge Road would have to accommodate both an extension to the existing Post Office as
well as a new tea-shop for J. Lyons, who would be
displaced. The inclusion of the tea-shop was advocated
by C. G. Shankland, one of the architects working on the
scheme, as 'good comprehensive planning' in view of the
future increase of office workers attracted to the new South
Bank. (fn. 26) Two designs were prepared for the completion of
South Block, one a simple truncation of the 1930s scheme,
providing 250 places, and the other an L-shaped plan,
again to a shorter length than the original, which brought
the total up to 320. It was recognized that an extra seventy
places were not going to solve the LCC's accommodation
problem, and since the smaller scheme – thought by the
architect to be the more satisfactory – was estimated to
cost about fifteen per cent less per place, it was adopted. (fn. 27)
In the new scheme the block facing Belvedere Road
had a simpler treatment than that proposed in the original
New County Offices scheme, and for reasons of economy
the short return along Belvedere Road was omitted. The
cost per place was higher than that of the North Block
Extension because of the need to continue the design of
the existing South Block along Westminster Bridge Road.
It was recognized that no architectural solution was 'practicable which would enable a departure from this form
which is basically more expensive than a modern building
employing new techniques'. The main expense would be
the work in Portland stone which would have to consist
of solid slabs with setbacks to carry the cornices and
mouldings through the elevation; apart from the extra
cost of the stone itself, this involved heavier and more
expensive construction and steelwork. (fn. 28)
Tenders for foundations were received in July 1960, and
the contract was won by the Demolition & Construction
Company Limited, at £33,029 7s. 5d. W. J. Simms, Sons
& Cooke, Limited, were awarded the main building contract with a price of £379,056, and finished the building
early in 1963. (fn. 29)
It was intended that the opportunity would be taken to
re-plan the courtyard, by removing the plinth and replacing it with a fountain – a programme first mooted in
1949. (fn. 30) The plan also provided for an increase in the
number of car-parking spaces. In the event, the idea of a
place with gardens in front of County Hall was abandoned.
The plinth was demolished, the fountain was never built,
and the courtyard became a car-park.
From the time of the South Block Extension, the
Council seems to have thought of County Hall merely in
terms of square feet of office space. Buildings designed
subsequently were no longer intended as expressions of
the Council's belief in its political or social roles. The
involvement of the Royal Fine Art Commission with the
Island Block project, which is discussed below, is indicative of the Council's new attitude. The RFAC saw themselves as stepping in to prevent the building becoming too
obtrusive, almost to defend London from a Council which
had once seen itself as setting the standards for urban
development in the capital.
Addington Street Annexe
Fig. 51. Outline plan of the County Hall complex in 1986 showing the various buildings and additions.
1 Main Building (1913–22); 2 Main Building (Northern Front) (1930–33); 3, 4 North and South Blocks (1936–9); 5 North Block
Extension (1955–8); 6 Addington Street Annexe (1960); 7 South Block Extension (1960–3); 8 Infill building, H courtyard (1970–3);
9 Infill building, Members' Courtyard (1972–4); 10 Island Block (1970–4)
Before work on the South Block Extension was begun, the
Council agreed to a recommendation by the Establishment
Committee for the provision of more temporary office
space, to the east of York Road, in Addington Street.
During the 1930s the LCC had been negotiating with the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners for the purchase of land
between York Road and Belvedere Road for their extension scheme, and were forced to take Addington Street off
the Commissioners' hands at the same time. A redundant
school and some cottages, scheduled for demolition, stood
on the site, and the future of the area from a town planning
point of view was uncertain. In March 1960 the Council
decided to build a prefabricated four-storey structure on the
site to help with the decanting problems while war damage repairs were going ahead. The building was finished
in the autumn of 1960, providing space for 340 staff at an
estimated cost of £118,750. It was expected to have a serviceable life of seven years, but was still in use in 1986. (fn. 31)
Though modest in size, and not generally reviewed in
architectural publications, the Addington Street extension
was seen by at least one critic as a fine example of modern
design (Plate 45a). Ian Nairn thought it displayed 'just
the sort of sober richness and care over details that would
transform most office blocks – yet without any pretensions
or appliqué aesthetics'. Written in 1964, his observations
also reflect a boredom in architectural circles with the
pompous commercial classicism of the 1930s. He called it
'an enormous relief from the exhausted style' of the
Hiorns-Scott building. (fn. 32) His words recall the misgivings
about classicism generally as a modern idiom, expressed
by Halsey Ricardo at the time of the competition, over
fifty years earlier.
The Creation of the GLC
In 1965 the LCC was replaced by the GLC, an event
which, despite the delegation of many powers to the
London Boroughs, was to mean the recruitment of more
staff, and even more pressure on space at County Hall.
By a sad irony, the passing of the LCC coincided with
that of one of its most distinguished Members. Herbert
Morrison had been one of the strongest opponents of the
creation of the GLC, and his death in early March 1965
was the occasion of a poignant ceremony. Morrison's body
was cremated, and he had asked in his will that his ashes
'be scattered into the high tide of London's river from the
terrace of County Hall where I was privileged to render
several years of happy service to the people of London'. (fn. 33)
This deed was performed by the Leader of the Council,
Sir Isaac Hayward (1884–1976), a few hours before the
LCC's final meeting. As the tide was low at the time,
Morrison's ashes were scattered from the LCC fireboat
Firebrace, which had set out from the Festival Pier.
War Damage Reinstatement
Though much discussed, the repairs to war damage at
County Hall were deferred because they did not offer the
immediate gains in accommodation that new building did.
However, some of the most substantial internal changes
were made to County Hall in connexion with war damage
reinstatement. These involved the 'refurbishment' of the
Chairman and Members' accommodation overlooking the
Thames in the Crescent (Plate 43c), and ultimately the
removal of the contents of the Members' Library to Clerkenwell, and its use as offices. The staff restaurant and
kitchens were moved from the sixth and seventh floors to
a position beneath the Members' Terrace. Plans for this
move, which made a gain of 20,000 square feet of office
accommodation, were approved in 1964, and the new
restaurant opened two years later, in July 1966. (fn. 34) The
Times described the new restaurant 'suite' in somewhat
exaggerated terms as 'encompassing the whole length of
the building and a range of vision as fine as any in London',
and went on to itemize a foyer, 324–seat cafeteria (Plate
43b), two 90–seat waitress service restaurants, a senior
officers' restaurant seating 60, a snack bar and a 'beautiful
gallery coffee lounge with seats in riverside picture window
recesses'. (fn. 35) The severe granite wall, relieved only by a few
'arrow-loops', which faced the public embankment walk
in front of the Members' Terrace, was replaced with a
full-height strip of sheet glass screened by net curtains,
thus providing the new coffee lounge with a panoramic
view of the Thames (Plate 42b). This alteration to the
river front was not universally welcomed, arousing, in
particular, the ire of the Victorian Society.
A further modernization was the redecoration of the
Belvedere Road entrance hall in 1968. Knott's severe
design, planned with visions of the mob storming the
Ceremonial Staircase, gave way to a comfortable lobby
where the mob could await the attentions of authority
'in a modern, friendly and efficient atmosphere'. (fn. 36) Carpeting appeared in place of mosaic, and the marble chimneypieces disappeared behind curtaining. Staff were discouraged from using the redecorated entrance, and
Hector, the County Hall cat, was removed as being infra
dig. (fn. 37) Some ten years later, it was discovered that the marble fireplaces had disappeared for ever, as, of course, had
Hector.
One South Bank cat did rather better. In 1948 George
VI, reading of the South Bank development, had expressed concern for the fate of the two Coade stone lions
on the Lion Brewery, which was being demolished at the
time. The LCC loyally agreed to preserve the lions, and
in 1951 they were exhibited at the Festival of Britain. The
larger lion was subsequently removed to York Road, and
after a brief sojourn at Waterloo Station in the early 1960s,
was installed in its present position atop the pedestal on
the corner of Westminster Bridge in 1966. (fn. b)
The Island Block
The efforts of the LCC to centralize their staff, while
sometimes approaching their goal, had never actually
achieved it. Each new plan, projected to resolve the
dilemma once and for all, had been overwhelmed by an
ever-growing central office staff, a problem which continued under the GLC.
In 1967 and 1968 the Establishment Committee
reported that a third of central office staff were in scattered
accommodation, and dusted off the now familiar arguments for bringing everyone together. They invited a firm
of management consultants to advise on the problem, and
were disconcerted to be told that decentralization was the
answer – that some 2,000 staff working at County Hall
could be sent to work outside central London. The Committee rejected this advice, preferring to take advantage
of proposals to build the long-awaited roundabout at the
junction of York Road and Westminster Bridge Road, and
giving instructions that a scheme be prepared for an office
building on the traffic island at the centre of the roundabout. This was announced to the press in February
1968. (fn. 39)
The first Island Block design was for a 'triple-octagon
tower block of 15 storeys, 170 ft high', containing 154,000
square feet of offices, estimated to cost £3,020,000 and
providing room for 1,540 people. The Council approved
this design early in 1969, but the Royal Fine Art Commission was opposed to it, asserting that the area was
sensitive to high buildings. The Establishment Committee, though they felt that there were no views in the
vicinity that a tower could spoil, agreed to modify the
plans. (fn. 40)
Work on site began on 4 December 1970, and the
building was officially opened on 21 October 1974 (Plate
45b-d). The block was designed by R. A. Laker, J. E.
Knight and W. Sutherland, under Sir Roger Walters as
Architect to the Council. Trollope & Colls were the main
contractors. The structure of the building is situ-cast
concrete faced with 'grit blasted calcinated flint panels
which should minimise the irregularities of weathering',
according to the architects. The cost of the building was
£3,623,647. Ancillary works, including landscaping and
alterations to the South Block, added a further £226,773.
The cost per square foot was very high, mainly because of
the restricted nature of the site, which made construction
difficult, and the high level of servicing. (fn. 41)
As built the Island Block provides the same accommodation as the earlier project would have done, with a
hexagonal plan rising from the basement through seven
storeys, the last three of these stepped back. Isolated by
the swirl of heavy traffic and by the deep light well which
surrounds its lower storeys, the building has no entrance
at ground level and is connected to the rest of County
Hall by means of subways and a bridge across York Road
from South Block. The main entrance is from the Belvedere Road Courtyard via an ingeniously contrived escalator up to the bridge (Plate 45c), so that the visitor arrives
directly on the 'second floor' of the Island Block. There
is a roof garden on the top of the building, though it is
unused. Internally the spaces are arranged as large open
offices on the burolandschaft (landscaped artificially controlled deep office space) principle and the whole building
was a sealed environment, fully air-conditioned with automatic solar-control blinds. These bright orange blinds
were controlled by solar cells on the roof, but problems
were found in tuning the system so that rapidly changing
weather conditions did not cause them to be rolling and
unrolling themselves throughout the day.
When it was opened, the Island Block contained the
Valuation and Housing Departments. These two departments had to be easily accessible to the public, hence the
complicated escalator and bridge arrangement, though
some users found its open plan as confusing as the corridors of the original building. Some architectural critics
saw the idea as a clever use of otherwise dismal urban
space, and the building itself as a realization of this idea
to a high architectural standard. 'Not many buildings',
wrote David Rock, 'are taking advantage of the sophistication in internal environmental techniques and it needs
a client body like the GLC to advance such techniques'.
He thought the stepped-back floors gave 'a simple Teutonic solution to the design problem'. (fn. 42) When the building
was opened Edward Jones agreed that 'a much aboveaverage working environment has been achieved', even
though 'the initial programmatic difficulties will not disappear'. But he was also interested in the wider implications of the development, noting that the new building
housed approximately a quarter of the total 8,500 office
staff working for the GLC at the South Bank headquarters.
Before the adoption of the burolandschaft principle of office
planning, the two per cent daylight factor would have
necessitated a tower of Centre Point proportions on that
site. (fn. 43)
Infill Buildings
Coincident with the building of the Island Block were two
schemes that gained more space by filling in parts of the
two large internal courtyards – the Members' Courtyard
and H courtyard to the north of the Council Chamber.
These provided for 496 and 250 people respectively, at
the space standard of 80 square feet per person, and were
built using curtain wall construction. The cost for both
schemes was estimated at £754,000. Altogether, the three
developments pushed central office accommodation from
6,500 to 8,800 places. (fn. 44)
These infill structures are utilitarian in design, with no
deference to Knott's work which surrounds them (Plates
42c, d, 43a). While this is excusable in the northern area,
it is indefensible in the magnificent Members' Courtyard.
Although the two infill blocks were built within two years
of each other – that in H courtyard in 1970–3, that in the
Members' Courtyard in 1972–4 (fn. 45) – they are much further
apart than that in style. Owing to its green-tinted spandrel
panels and clear glass, the former looks like a product of
the 1950s, whereas the black glass and glazing bars of the
Members' Courtyard infill reflect much more accurately
the fashion in curtain wall design then prevailing.
In 1973 feasibility studies were made for expansion
northwards. The Times reported the proposals as being for
'a building of moderate bulk which might house a new
council chamber and would certainly include members'
accommodation and space for the public to meet members
and officials'. (fn. 46)
Nothing came of these proposals, and within a few years
central government had taken away some of the Council's
functions, a process culminating in the abolition of the
GLC.
Working at County Hall
County Hall developed a distinctive character, that, as in
all buildings, grew out of the nature of the work carried
on there and the collective personality of the Members
and staff, and which was also partly determined by its
design. The immense size of the building tended to the
development of isolated communities within it. Many such
'villages' existed in County Hall, the inhabitants of which
knew of each others' existence, and sometimes ventured
into each others' territory, but tended to maintain an
independence of character. This was partly based on the
differing work done in the various departments, and to
some extent on the architecture of the building itself. The
Architect's Plan Room, for example, deeply embedded in
the sub-basement, was in recent memory a distinct and
almost monastic community, where silence prevailed, and
visitors were rare.
Recollections are inevitably personal and varied, but
certain features do emerge from those of the former
Members and officers that help to convey a sense of the
unique atmosphere of County Hall when it was the centre
of a London-wide local authority.
The scale of the building and its internal layout were
the features which, not unnaturally, made the greatest
impression upon the councillors, their officers, and those
members of the public who had reason to visit it. The
size of County Hall did not appeal to all, and ten years
after its official opening Sir Harry Haward, a former
Comptroller of the LCC, thought that a number of
Members still felt some regret at leaving Spring Gardens
where, although the offices were 'mean and uninspiring
... there was an intimate character about the Chamber
and its lobby which is entirely lacking in the vast building
across the river'. (fn. 47) To Herbert Morrison its magnitude was
not inappropriate, however, for he regarded the 'massive
building' of County Hall as an expression of the power of
municipal government in London and 'a highly organised
workshop of public administration' which gave the
impression of modernity. (fn. 48) The staff who worked there
also reacted to the building's scale in different ways. One
found that 'the great building ... always seemed to me to
lack the charm of the great Victorian town halls', while
another regarded its size as 'oddly liberating by reason of
the anonymity it bestowed'. (fn. 49)
It was the lengthy corridors which did much to convey
the sense of scale of the building and contributed a great
deal to its distinctive personality. They ran for five-anda-quarter miles, and much time could be spent simply
walking from one room to another along 'those echoing
corridors with highly polished floors ... leading for hundreds of yards' and 'in places extending as far as the eye
could see'. Due allowance had to be made for the time
which was required to make a journey within the building
in order to arrive at a meeting on time. The consequences
of a misjudgment were not entirely pleasant, for 'Latecomers had to pound, breathless, along the slippery
parquet of the identically panelled corridors, frantically
trying to find the right door'. Such unwelcome experiences
could make a lasting impression. A former officer recalled
that 'After twenty years, I still have the occasional bad
dream when I am hurrying through those endless corridors, up stairs with no top, in lifts that don't work, in
tunnels (there is one) that turn into dwindling caves and
potholes, always late for something very important'. Even
an experienced Member heading for a familiar destination
on the Principal Floor 'had to allow at least ten minutes,
once inside County Hall, to be punctual for a meeting'.
The corridors were apparently 'interminable' and even
'formidable', but they did have some helpful features,
among them 'the deep window sills along one side ...
which gave the assurance one could stop and juggle around
with one's papers before reaching one's destination'.
The corridors were partly to blame for the problems
which many encountered in finding their way around
County Hall, for although their arrangement was a logical
one, it was not readily understood. There was, moreover,
an inherent difficulty of orientation within the building.
One Member found that this caused him considerable
problems 'until I was advised that the trick was to open a
door and get a view of the river'. The numbering of the
rooms also had a logic to it, but it did not survive intact,
due to the subdivision of rooms and the creation of new
ones as the pressure upon accommodation increased. That
the population of County Hall had risen considerably was
very apparent to an officer returning there in 1968 after
an absence of eighteen years, to find that the building was
crammed full of people ... there were printers in the roof
space and scientists in the sub-basement'. The effect of
the greater numbers employed within the building was
that 'alterations and adaptations were constantly being
carried out in one part or another, with the result that the
numbering of the rooms ... became chaotic, especially
when old cross-corridors were closed and new ones
opened'. In addition, departments were reorganized and
relocated within the building, disturbing the original
arrangements. The Survey of London was particularly
mobile, having nine sets of offices within thirty years, two
of them outside County Hall. The combined result of such
reorganization, the layout and room numbering was that
it required 'months or years to fully understand how rooms
had been subdivided (and not always logically renumbered) and why cross corridors would wind off apparently
to nowhere'. Even after many years of service, one officer
'would sometimes come across a tiny room off a cross
corridor which I had not known to exist'.
The consequence was that it was by no means easy for
visitors to find their way within the building. Indeed,
this rather understates the situation, for, as one Member
reported, it was 'not surprising to find a visitor completely
lost' (fn. 50) and an officer later recalled that 'many were the lost
souls one encountered on a journey in County Hall'. The
difficulties were experienced by the diarist of The Times
who, in 1966, attempted to keep an appointment with 'the
holder of a high office' and so began a search which led
'down passages, measureless to man ... Upstairs and
down, round corners, finding numbers on doors apparently planned as part of a game of snakes and ladders ...
[until] by guessing and good luck, we found the promised
room'. The conclusion drawn from this evidently memorable adventure was that 'The designers of the Cretan
labyrinth and the Hampton Court maze would treat the
County Hall men as their peers'. (fn. 51)
What of the rooms themselves? The chief ones, on the
Principal Floor, were generally much appreciated. One
Leader of the GLC recalled, with evident pleasure, his
'magnificent suite of offices ... in the curved section of
the river frontage'. A change of post or rank often meant
a change of room, however, and perhaps a change of
aspect. A Member who served on the LCC and GLC for
twenty years experienced a range of the accommodation
which County Hall offered to Members, from 'a lovely
front room with a river prospect' to 'a rather sinister
internal room with a half-concealed entrance'. The
Council Chamber and Conference Hall were regarded as
fine rooms, 'well designed, comfortable and convenient
for Members, but much too high' and both 'were acoustically a disaster'. The visitors' galleries in the Chamber
were 'too high up, too remote and very uncomfortable'
and the view of the Members which they afforded 'was
chiefly confined to seeing the not infrequently bald tops
of their heads'. The space allocated to the press was also
less than satisfactory, for by the 1950s they were placed
'at the back of a bank of members' seats, so that a stranger
would not have known a reporter from a member'. Strictly
speaking, the Principal Floor was restricted to the use of
the Members and their staff and those senior officers who
had business there. There were exceptions to this rule,
one being that the Members' Library could also be used
by officers. It represented 'a civilised refuge, with a desk
at which to ruminate and make notes for speeches' and a
quiet spot 'where one could research and write in peace'.
The sanctity of the Principal Floor was gradually eroded;
it was no longer maintained in the early 1970s and by the
early 1980s had been completely abandoned.
The impression created by offices elsewhere in County
Hall depended partly upon their aspect. One officer found
himself working with a section 'housed in one large and
inconvenient room on the ground floor, at the south end
of the crescent, with an outlook largely obscured by the
sub-structure of the members' terrace'. Those rooms
facing the river were to be preferred, for obvious reasons.
'The view from the fourth-floor offices was always beautiful on late winter afternoons when the lights came on
along the Victoria Embankment.' Their occupants could
also appreciate one of the few benefits of London's polluted atmosphere, which was the 'exceptional beauty of
the sunsets, on occasion, behind Big Ben, going down in
a haze of mauve, purple, indigo'. One drawback of the
rooms on the riverfront was 'the strong winds, especially
in the winter months'. Indeed, much of the building
suffered with 'related problems of heating and ventilation'.
This applied to the older parts and to the later multi-storey
infill rooms on the east and west sides of the Members'
Courtyard and H courtyard which had large windows.
They therefore became rather hot in summer, for 'the
internal sun-blinds provided were of little use', and cold
in winter, when 'the air-conditioning system ... led to
trouble, because at times the occupants of one floor would
block up the vents on account of draughts, thereby creating even colder air-flows for those in the rooms above
or below them'. Even the small offices in the original
building were less than ideal, especially those which were
long and narrow 'so that two people sitting by the window
had good light, while the more junior staff tended to have
less light further into the room'. The position of a room
relative to the catering facilities also affected the equanimity of its occupants. One officer, whose room was in
the basement directly below the canteen, could identify a
'fish day' long before lunchtime arrived. The pungency of
the odours was much reduced when the new staff restaurant complex was opened in 1966. Even apart from the
cooking facilities, County Hall did have a distinctive smell,
which, once experienced, 'was never to be forgotten'. The
floor polish and the disinfectants used contributed largely
to it and the drains also played an important part in the
'unique and subtle blend' of smells 'which pervaded many
of the corridors'. There were some seasonal variations and
'on very hot days the drain element tended to predominate'.
Individual impressions of the building as a place of work
varied, but in general they were favourable. Although the
grandeur of the principal areas did not extend to the
offices, it was felt to be a 'pleasant rather than unpleasant
building to be employed in'. The ceremonial areas were
at their most splendid when they were decked out in
municipal flowers for the entertainment of a visiting head
of state, though the annual Chairman's Reception also
gave an opportunity for 'exotic floral displays'. An officer
who had worked there for almost forty years remembered
it as 'pleasant, comfortable and convenient ... a building
to be proud of', while for one elected Member County
Hall 'was the "second best club in London" yielding place
only to the House of Lords!'