CHANNEL 4 HEADQUARTERS, LONDON, BY RICHARD ROGERS PARTNERSHIP
The innovative television channel found its perfect partner in high-tech architecture
Channel 4 first went on air in 1982, with a programming model unlike any other television channel at that time. Acting as publisher rather than creator, it championed content from independent filmmakers and producers, with an ethos of being experimental, socially aware and willing to take risks. The company decided to take exactly the same approach when, in 1990, it commissioned British architect Richard Rogers to design its headquarters on Horseferry Road in Westminster.
Rogers was the posterboy for a radical new architectural style, known as high-tech. As he had shown with both the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Lloyd’s building in London, this involved placing everything ancillary to the building’s main function – from structural beams and service ducts to elevators and corridors – on the exterior, for all to see. But Rogers pushed this idea even further with the Channel 4
THE FAÇADE IS A SUSPENDED CURTAIN WALL OF CURVED GLASS – THE FIRST IN LONDON
headquarters, creating a building that offers even greater transparency, because it also reveals its inner workings.
The structure is formed of two four-storey, perpendicular wings, connected by a full-height, fan-shaped atrium. The façade is a suspended curtain wall of curved glass – the first of its kind in London – while the entrance comprises a glass bridge. So, as you arrive, you’re able to see up into workspaces, down into a cinema complex below and through to the huge communal cafeteria beyond.
With most of the television content produced externally, there was only need for one studio, which is located downstairs along with editing suites and news broadcast facilities. The rest of the building is taken up by a mix of open-plan and cellular offices, conference rooms and executive suites, which are accessed via perforated concrete walkways. With expanded aluminium screens shading the windows and concrete columns dotting the floorplates, these spaces come with a machine-like feeling of inventiveness.
Channel 4 recently opened a new national headquarters building in Leeds, as part of a strategy to make its coverage more representative of other parts of the UK besides London. But there are no plans to leave the Horseferry Road address. Instead, the spaces freed up by relocated staff are now being used by independent producers and creative companies based in the capital, which is testament to the building’s inherent functionality and flexibility. For Richard Rogers, who last year announced his retirement from architecture, these qualities have earned the project an important place in his legacy. rsh-p.com