Carnival House | |
---|---|
General information | |
Address | 100 Harbour Parade |
Town or city | Southampton |
Country | England |
Current tenants | Carnival UK |
Owner | Carnival Corporation & plc |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 5 |
Floor area | 20,500sqm |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | HOK Architects |
Carnival House is a landmark office building in the city of Southampton, Hampshire, England. It is a purpose-built headquarters for Carnival UK, the United Kingdom operating company of Carnival Corporation & plc, the world's largest cruise shipping company. The building was officially opened on Sunday 19 July 2009.
Carnival House contains the head offices of P&O Cruises and Cunard Line. It also houses the UK offices of Princess Cruises, (headquartered in Santa Clarita, California) and Seabourn / Holland America Line (headquartered in Seattle, Washington). In addition Carnival Corporation's new build division is based in the building. [1]
The building's five storeys, each named after a sea or ocean, contain 140,000 square feet (13,000 m2) of office space between them, with a full-height atrium of 7,000 square feet (650 m2) linking them together. The office space is open plan with separate rooms for private meetings, each named after a port the company serves and decorated with glazed navigational charts. [2]
Prior to the construction of Carnival House the company's five brands, Cunard, P&O Cruises, Ocean Village, Princess and Yachts of Seabourn, each had separate headquarters buildings. The senior architect aimed to create "a collective identity for the new headquarters whilst also allowing each of the five brands to maintain their own distinct identity." [2]
The distinctive wave patterns on the two panels of the building facade represent propagation of oceanic Rossby waves and were created by using real satellite data (sea surface height anomaly data from satellite altimetry) provided by Paolo Cipollini and Peter Challenor of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.[ citation needed ]
Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) is a retired British passenger ship converted into a floating hotel. Originally built for the Cunard Line, the ship was operated by Cunard as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship from 1969 to 2008. She was then laid up until converted and since 18 April 2018 has been operating as a floating hotel in Dubai.
The Cunard Line is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on tours known as "shore excursions".
Carnival Corporation & plc is a British and American cruise operator with a combined fleet of over ninety vessels across nine cruise line brands and one joint venture with China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). A dual-listed company, Carnival is composed of the Panama-incorporated, US-headquartered Carnival Corporation, and UK-based Carnival plc, which function as one entity. Carnival Corporation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, whereas Carnival plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange with an ADR listing on the NYSE. Carnival is listed in both the S&P 500 and FTSE 250 indices.
The Cunard Building is a Grade II* listed building in Liverpool, England. It is located at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Royal Liver Building and Port of Liverpool Building is one of Liverpool's Three Graces, which line the city's waterfront. It is also part of Liverpool's former UNESCO designated World Heritage, the Maritime Mercantile City.
Ocean Countess was a cruise ship owned by Majestic International Cruises of Greece. She was completed in 1976 as Cunard Countess for Cunard Line and was a popular ship in the Caribbean cruise market for 20 years. After leaving Cunard service in 1996, she had a number of owners before being purchased by Majestic in 2004. She was retired in 2012 and scrapped in 2014 after a fire destroyed the ship.
Princess Cruises is an American cruise line owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. The company is incorporated in Bermuda and its headquarters are in Santa Clarita, California. As of 2021, it is the second largest cruise line by net revenue. It was previously a subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises. The line has 15 ships cruising global itineraries that are marketed to both American and international passengers.
MS Amera is a cruise ship operated by Phoenix Reisen. She was launched in 1988 as Royal Viking Sun for Royal Viking Line, and began operating for Cunard Line under the same name in 1994. She was renamed Seabourn Sun when Seabourn Cruise Line acquired the ship in 1999. In 2002, Seabourn transferred the ship to Holland America Line, which was renamed as Prinsendam. In 2018, Prinsendam was sold to Phoenix Reisen, debuting in 2019.
Fincantieri S.p.A. is an Italian shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. Already the largest shipbuilder in Europe, after the acquisition of Vard in 2013, Fincantieri group doubled in size to become the fourth largest in the world (2014). The company builds both commercial and military vessels.
MS Queen Victoria (QV) is a Vista-class cruise ship operated by the Cunard Line and is named after the former British monarch Queen Victoria. The vessel is of the same basic design as other Vista-class cruise ships, including Queen Elizabeth. At 90,049 gross tonnage (GT) she is the smallest of Cunard's ships in operation. Her facilities include seven restaurants, thirteen bars, three swimming pools, a ballroom, and a theatre.
Ocean Village was a British-American owned cruise line, based in Southampton, Hampshire, UK. Designed to offer an alternative cruise experience, Ocean Village was founded by P&O Princess Cruises, which later merged with Carnival Corporation to form Carnival Corporation & plc. Ocean Village operated from 2003, until 2010 when the brand was discontinued, with the cruise ship Ocean Village transferring to P&O Cruises Australia.
P&O Cruises is a British cruise line based at Carnival House in Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. It was originally a subsidiary of the freight transport company P&O and was founded in 1977. Along with P&O Cruises Australia, another former subsidiary of P&O, it has the oldest heritage of any cruise line in the world, dating to P&O's first passenger operations in 1837.
Seabourn Cruise Line is a luxury small ship cruise line headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is owned by Carnival Corporation & plc.
The Royal Viking Line was a luxury cruise line that operated from 1972 until 1998. The company was the brainchild of Warren Titus and had its headquarters at One Embarcadero Center in San Francisco.
RMS Sylvania was an ocean liner built in 1957 by John Brown & Co (Clydebank), in Glasgow, for the United Kingdom-based shipping company Cunard Line. She was the last Cunard Line vessel built specifically for transatlantic crossings. The ship was later heavily rebuilt as a cruise ship, and sailed under the names SS Fairwind, SS Sitmar Fairwind, SS Dawn Princess and SS Albatros before being scrapped in 2004. She was renamed SS Genoa for her last voyage.
The Port of Southampton is a passenger and cargo port in the central part of the south coast of England. The modern era in the history of the Port of Southampton began when the first dock was inaugurated in 1843. After the Port of Felixstowe, Southampton is the second largest container terminal in UK, with a handled traffic of 1.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). It also handles cruise ships, roll-on roll-off, dry bulk, and liquid bulk.
RMS Queen Mary 2 (QM2) is a British transatlantic ocean liner. She has served as the flagship of Cunard Line since succeeding Queen Elizabeth 2 in 2004. The ship was officially named Queen Mary 2 by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 after the first RMS Queen Mary of 1936. With the retirement of Queen Elizabeth 2 in 2008, Queen Mary 2 is the only ocean liner in service in the world. She has a regular service between Southampton, England, and New York City, United States, and an annual world cruise.
P&O Princess Cruises plc was a shipping company that existed between 2000 and 2003, operating the P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, P&O Cruises Australia, A'Rosa Cruises, AIDA Cruises and Ocean Village branded cruise lines. The company was formed from the de-merged passenger services of the P&O and operated until 2003 when it was re-listed as Carnival plc following a merger with Carnival Corporation. Its registered office was in London.
The Liverpool Cruise Terminal is a 350-metre-long (1,150 ft) floating structure situated on the River Mersey enabling large cruise ships to visit without entering the enclosed dock system or berthing mid-river and tendering passengers ashore. The terminal was officially opened on 21 September 2007 by the Duke of Kent when the Queen Elizabeth 2 berthed at the terminal. The current terminal is composed mainly of a floating landing stage, with a small passenger terminal building, but a larger terminal is planned by the new operators Global Ports Holding.
The Cunard Building, formerly the Standard & Poors Building, is a 22-story office building at 25 Broadway, across from Bowling Green Park, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The Cunard Building was designed in the Italian Renaissance style by Benjamin Wistar Morris, in conjunction with consultants Carrère & Hastings. The Cunard Building's facade and principal first-floor interior spaces are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2007.