Drapers' Gardens
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Drapers Gardens is a site in the City of London at the junction of Throgmorton Avenue and Copthall Avenue on land owned by the Drapers' Company, originally forming gardens but used for major office blocks from the 1960s.
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[edit] Seifert skyscraper
Drapers Gardens was a skyscraper in the City of London. It stood at 100 metres (328 ft) tall and had 30 storeys. It was completed in 1967 and demolished in 2007[1]. It was designed by Richard Seifert, the architect of the Tower 42. Seifert described the Drapers Gardens' skyscraper as his proudest achievement[2]. Until the skyscraper was built, the site had been undeveloped since Roman times, as it was waterlogged by tributaries of the River Walbrook.
It holds the current record for the tallest building to be demolished in the UK, surpassing Limebank House which stood at 93 metres (305 ft) tall.
When viewed from Waterloo Bridge (as in the photograph below), Drapers Gardens appeared as the closest office tower to St Paul's Cathedral. For this reason it was disliked by many people. Conversely, there were those who cited the building as a fine example of its period, and one of the few genuinely well-designed towers of the 1960s. Seifert himself described the building as his proudest achievement.
[edit] New development
The replacement Drapers Gardens is only 75 metres (246 ft) tall with 16 floors, three roof terraces and a pocket park, but at 270,000 square feet will have more floor space. It is designed by Foggo Associates. The developers are Exemplar Developments and Canary Wharf Developments, with completition planned for Autumn 2009.
Between the demolition and rebuilding, an archaeological dig by Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd found Roman remains dating from 63 AD to 383 AD. These included a well with 19 metal vessels in an exceptional state of preservation, a ruler and the skull of a bear[3][4].
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Drapers Gardens - SkyscraperNews.com". http://www.skyscrapernews.com/buildings.php?id=105. Retrieved on 2008-12-08.
- ^ "Drapers Gardens - Risky Buildings". http://www.riskybuildings.org.uk/docs/03drapers/index.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-08.
- ^ "Excavations at Drapers Gardens, City of London - Pre-Construct". http://www.pre-construct.com/Sites/Highlights/Drapers.htm. Retrieved on 2008-12-08.
- ^ "Roman artifacts discovered in London well - Telegraph.co.uk". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1571714/Roman-artifacts-discovered-in-London-well.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-08.
