The Urban 75 website [visit link] tells
us:
"The building stands 117m (385ft)
tall, accommodating 35 floors of office space, with its distinctive concrete
pattern making it an instantly recognisable London landmark.
Work started on the tower in 1962,
to a design submitted by Richard Robin Seifert & Partners (who went on to
build the 43-story Tower 42 in 1980).
The building was constructed using
prefabricated precast-concrete, H-shaped units lifted into position by an
internally sited crane designed to rise in height with the
building.
The units were bolted to each other
and to the concrete floor to become the load-bearing façade of the building.
Loads were also designed to be carried by two pairs of precast-concrete columns
in the centre of the building.
The architect, Seifert explained
that the H-shaped units 'should provide interesting modelling in a self-finished
material capable of withstanding the extremes of exposure and the elimination of
wet materials will considerably speed up the construction time'.
Centre Point was completed in 1964,
offering 180,000 square feet of office space.
Critics weren't too pleased with
the building, deriding its 'murky and filthy underpass' underneath which quickly
proved popular with junkies, the homeless and ne'er do wells.
Outrageously, the 200,000 sq ft
building famously stood empty for nearly a decade after it was completed - and
when current owners Targetfollow took over in 2005, 12 floors still remained
vacant.
Seeing this vast tower standing
empty for so long while so many people were homeless led some people to suggest
that the building 'came to embody the greed of the UK property industry'
[Source].
On January 18th 1974, homeless
protesters managed to briefly occupy Centre Point, cunningly assisted by two
campaigners getting jobs as security guards for the building. The protesters
described the skyscraper as 'the concrete symbol of everything that is rotten
about our society.'
The protest went on to inspire the
name for a new homeless charity, Centrepoint.
Centre Point features a set of
street-level water fountains which seem to work to an entirely arbitrary
timetable, often lying dormant throughout hot summers before suddenly bursting
into life in bleakest mid-winter.
Although attractive, they haven't
found universal favour, drawing complaints from members of the public who object
to getting a face full of spray as they try to negotiate the miserably narrow
pavement around its base.
During 2002-2003, Centre Point's
office and building reception areas were extensively refurbished to the
requirements of the Planning Department, English Heritage and the Project
Architects, Gaunt Francis Associates.
Centre Point has withstood years of
criticism and disuse to earn the accolade of a Grade Two listing, with the Royal
Fine Art Commission praising the building as having an 'elegance worthy of a
Wren steeple'.
And although there's no denying
that it's not quite of the highest architecturally quality, it's still an
innovative building of national significance that may finally find a place in
Londoner's hearts.
Obscure Fact! Centre Point featured
on the cover of 1970s folkies Lindisfarne single, 'All Fall Down'. I don't think
they liked the tower much!
"Politicians, planners go, look
what you done,
your madness is making a machine of ev'ryone,
but one day
the machine might turn on.
Chorus:
We'll tear you down, mess you
round,
and bury you deep under the ground,
and we'll dance on your graves
till the flowers return
and the trees tell us secrets that took ages to
learn...""