Exchange House - Broadgate, London, Great Britain.
N 51° 31.239 W 000° 04.832
30U E 702536 N 5711766
Wow - Exchange House is erected on arches that use bridge-building technology to distribute weight on to the piers. Steel arches also span two sides of the building. Seemingly decorative, these actually support the weight of much of the structure.
Waymark Code: WMRHB4
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/22/2016
Views: 4
This is truly a wow building, as it appears to balance on a small central rotunda & hover 20 feet above the plaza below it. As you look at it you wonder is it a bridge with a building on it, are the arches real or just for show? answers below.
"Exchange House is arguably one of the finest buildings in the Broadgate development, towering over the railway tracks above Liverpool Street Station and Exchange Square. Built in 1990 by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the ten-storey office building is effectively an inhabited bridge, with a frame supported on a primary structure of four parabolic segmented tiered arches." Text Source: (
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"like much of Broadgate, Exchange Square and the surrounding buildings are located above the busy tracks leading to Liverpool Street Station, leaving little room for traditional foundations. Undeterred, the Broadgate team worked with British Rail to construct a permanent raft over the area, at the same time as converting the station platforms into giant foundation piers.
An instant classic, Exchange House is erected on arches that use bridge-building technology to distribute weight on to the piers. Steel arches also span two sides of the building. Seemingly decorative, these actually support the weight of much of the structure – form follows function. With its unique engineering and dramatic appearance, Exchange House was named Best Commercial Building by the British Council for Offices, won a European Award for Steel Structures and collected a Progressive Architecture Award for Innovation." Text Source: (
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