Target House, London

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Target House
Target House, St. James's Street 01.JPG
General information
Type Mixed use
Location London, England
Coordinates 51°30′22″N0°08′21″W / 51.5061°N 0.1392°W / 51.5061; -0.1392 Coordinates: 51°30′22″N0°08′21″W / 51.5061°N 0.1392°W / 51.5061; -0.1392
Completed 1984
Technical details
Floor count 6
Floor area 11,843 square feet (1,100 m2) [1]
Design and construction
Architect Rodney Gordon
Ground floor showing the premises of Stern Pissarro Target House, St. James's Street 02.JPG
Ground floor showing the premises of Stern Pissarro
St James's Street from Piccadilly View from St James's Street into Piccadilly - geograph.org.uk - 834488.jpg
St James's Street from Piccadilly

Target House is a modern commercial building designed by British modernist architect Rodney Gordon (1933–2008) of Tripos Architects. It is located at 66 St James's Street, London, at the junction with St James's Place.

Rodney Gordon British architect

Rodney H Gordon was an English architect. He was the primary architect of the Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth, and Trinity Square, Gateshead. Architecturally, his works were primarily in concrete; he was said to be a Brutalist and his buildings have been described as "dramatic, sculptural and enormous" as well as "futuristic".

St Jamess Street street in the St Jamess area of the City of Westminster in London

St James's Street is the principal street in the district of St James's, central London. It runs from Piccadilly downhill to St James's Palace and Pall Mall. The main gatehouse of the Palace is at the southern end of the road, and in the 17th century Clarendon House faced down the street across Piccadilly on the site of most of Albemarle Street.

St Jamess Place

St James's Place is a street in the St James's district of London near Green Park. It was first developed around 1694, the historian John Strype describing it in 1720 as a "good Street ... which receiveth a fresh Air out of the Park; the Houses are well-built, and inhabited by Gentry ..." Henry Benjamin Wheatley wrote in 1870 that it was "one of the oddest built streets in London."

Contents

Design and construction

The building was designed in 1979 and completed in 1984. It replaced Map House, designed by R.J. Worley. [2] [3] The anodised bronze and aluminum cladding of the building made it a departure from the "brutalist" concrete designs more usually produced by Gordon. [4]

Brutalist architecture flourished from 1951 to 1975, having descended from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century. Considered both an ethic and aesthetic, utilitarian designs are dictated by function over form with raw construction materials and mundane functions left exposed. Reinforced concrete is the most commonly recognized building material of Brutalist architecture but other materials such as brick, glass, steel, and rough-hewn stone may also be used.

Reception

Charles McKean, the architecture correspondent for The Times, praised Target House, then known just as 66 St James's Street, for its boldness and panache but doubted the medieval credentials of the building claimed by the designers. He pointed out that the area had been developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and was not known for its medieval architecture apart from the faux medievalism of the nineteenth century. [5]

Charles McKean FRSE FRSA FRHistS FRIBA was Professor of Scottish Architectural History at the University of Dundee.

Medieval architecture architectural style

Medieval architecture is architecture common in the Middle Ages, and includes religious, civil, and military buildings. Styles include pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, and Gothic. While most of the surviving medieval architecture is to be seen in churches and castles, examples of civic and domestic architecture can be found throughout Europe, in manor houses, town halls, almshouses, bridges, and residential houses. An example of early medieval secular architecture is the palace of Santa María del Naranco, in Spain, built around 850.

Gothic Revival architecture architectural movement

Gothic Revival is an architectural movement popular in the Western World that began in the late 1740s in England. Its popularity grew rapidly in the early 19th century, when increasingly serious and learned admirers of neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval Gothic architecture, in contrast to the neoclassical styles prevalent at the time. Gothic Revival draws features from the original Gothic style, including decorative patterns, finials, lancet windows, hood moulds and label stops.

McKean argued that the reference to the medieval was a red-herring and the building was in fact more notable for its modernity and affinity with the "space programme". He speculated that the chopped-off towers at roof-line, that made the spectator say "ouch" and were the least successful part of the design in his opinion, were really the result of planning regulations that restricted the height of new buildings in the area. [5]

Red herring fallacy that is used as a rhetorical technique

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion. A red herring might be intentionally used, such as in mystery fiction or as part of rhetorical strategies, or it could be inadvertently used during argumentation.

Occupancy

The design included retail premises, offices and flats and the building was used in that form for many years. The ground floor is still occupied by the Stern Pissarro Gallery, [6] founded in 1964. [7] In February 2013, a successful planning application was made to Westminster Council to allow a change of use of the first to fourth floors from B1 (offices) to C3 (residential) use. [8]

Ownership

In 2012, the building was sold by Standard Life Investments to Albert Hay's Capital and City Group for £10.5 million. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 Standard Life Investments has sold the freehold of 66 St James’s Street to Albert Hay’s Capital and City Group for £10.5m reflecting a net initial yield of 3.94%. Strutt & Parker, 12 April 2012. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
  2. ↑ Nos. 66–67 St. James's Street and 1 St. James's Place, 1899–1900. British History Online. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  3. ↑ Nos. 66–67 St. James's Street and No. 1 St. James's Place. British History Online. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  4. ↑ Rodney Gordon. Catherine Croft, The Guardian, 10 September 2008. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  5. 1 2 "Red herring of medievalism", Charles McKean, The Times, 2 May 1983, p. 4.
  6. ↑ Stern Pissarro Gallery.. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  7. ↑ Stern Art: STERN PISSARRO GALLERY LONDON
  8. ↑ Search planning applications and decisions. City of Westminster. Ref: 13/01302/FULL. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
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