page_title: Architecture of London
section_title: Art Deco
hierarchical_section_title: Architecture of London / Art Deco & Interwar Architecture (1919–1939) / Art Deco
caption_attribution_description: English: The Hoover Building (1931-1935) by Wallis Gilbert and Partners, Western Avenue, London.
context_page_description: London is the largest and capital city of England and the United Kingdom. Founded as the ancient city of Londinium in the first century CE by the Romans as capital of the Roman province of Britannia, London has been an inhabited settlement almost continuously since. After the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, the layout of the Roman settlement became the approximate blueprint of the Saxon and medieval city. This ancient core of London is known as the City of London with Westminster, the ancient centre of political power in London, lying to the west. Relatively few structures survive from London's medieval past due to the city's near-total destruction in the Great Fire of 1666, but notable survivors include the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, Guildhall, St James's Palace, Lambeth Palace and a handful of scattered Tudor survivals. After the Great Fire, London was transformed as it was rebuilt and greatly modernised under the direction of the Baroque architect Sir Christopher Wren, with the new Baroque St Paul's Cathedral as its centrepiece.
context_section_description: Existing alongside the more prevalent Neo-Georgian and Neoclassical forms of architecture used in the capital in the 1920s and 1930s, Art Deco was nonetheless an extremely popular style from about 1925 to the later 1930s. The true stimulus was the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, where Art Deco had been developed roughly 20 years earlier. London, alongside New York City and Paris, became an innovative and experimental ground for Art Deco architecture. This is defined by clean lines, curves, geometric patterns, bold colour, and elaborate, stylised sculptural accents. Art Deco was adopted most enthusiastically by "modern" businesses and those seeking to advertise their modernity and forward-thinking attitude. These included cinemas, media headquarters, airports, swimming pools, factories, and power stations (such as Battersea Power Station). It was a flashy, luxurious style, so it was also well adapted for department stores (e.g. Simpsons of Piccadilly), theatres, hotels, and blocks of flats.
   Two of London's finest examples of Art Deco architecture stand on Fleet Street: the Daily Telegraph building (1928) and the Daily Express building. The façade of the latter is, unusually for the time, composed entirely of glass, vitrolite and chromium, which stood out boldly amongst the stone and brick architecture of Fleet Street. The use of industrial, sleek materials like these was more common in Deco buildings in New York City than it was in London: Portland stone remained overwhelmingly the material of choice. For example, another media headquarters, the BBC's Broadcasting House on Portland Place, was built in the traditional Portland stone with outstanding figural sculptures by Eric Gill. Ideal House (1929), is highly unusual in combining Art Deco with Egyptian motifs, on a façade clad in shiny black granite. Another Art Deco/Egyptian synthesis is the Carreras Cigarette Factory in Mornington Crescent.
  The erection of ultra-modern Deco buildings often came at the expense of older architectural gems, some irreplaceable. Along the Embankment two large Deco buildings were constructed which continue to dominate London's riverfront profile. The elegant Neoclassical Adelphi Buildings, designed by Robert and John Adam and built between 1768 and 1771, were demolished to build the New Adelphi office building in the 1930s. Adjacent to the Adelphi, the grand Hotel Cecil (1896) was demolished to make way for Shell Mex House (1931), a 190 ft (58 m) high Art Deco office building which features London's largest clock.
  
  The 19-storey Senate House, headquarters of the University of London, is the tallest Art Deco structure in London and was one of the tallest buildings in London when finished in 1937. It elicited, and continues to elicit, much criticism because it stands so tall and obtrusive amongst the modest Georgian squares of Bloomsbury. Evelyn Waugh described it as a "vast bulk...insulting the autumnal sky", while more recent critics have called it Stalinesque or reminiscent of the Third Reich. This association with totalitarian architecture was reinforced by the wartime rumour that Hitler wanted the Senate House for his London headquarters upon conquering Britain, and therefore ordered Luftwaffe bombers to avoid it during The Blitz.
caption: The Hoover Building (1931), an iconic example of London Art Deco
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