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£150 million 'whirlpool' hotel in City gets the go-ahead
Ruth Bloomfield08.05.09
A landmark City building will take on the appearance of a giant whirlpool under plans to create a £150million hotel.
American billionaire entrepreneur Stan Thomas has won permission to transform Trinity Square near Tower Bridge by constructing a huge glass atrium around a central courtyard.
The spectacular design, which echoes the Great Court at the Royal Museum, resembles a whirlpool from above and is set to be completed by 2012.
A glass canopy will cover a huge ballroom at the new hotel while the central well of the rotunda will be used as a landscaped garden.
Guests will drive into two "pavilions" in the grounds of the hotel and car lifts will lower them into an underground car park.
The Grade II* listed building, which has been vacant for years, will be restored and its grand rooms incorporated into the 121-room hotel. There will also be 30 private apartments on site.
Peter Rees, the Corporation of London's planning chief, claimed the hotel will be one of the smartest in the capital and is aimed at London's wealthiest visitors, with suites to accommodate guests' personal staff.
"It will be really top end," he said. "We asked why the suites were so large and they told us that the pilot and the chauffeur had to sleep somewhere.
"Overall this is an absolutely splendid project."
Mr Thomas, a committed Christian who made his fortune with a string of projects across the US, will develop the scheme with his company Thomas Enterprises.
Rob Steul, principal at Woods Bagot and designer of the scheme, said: "Trinity Square is a unique site in the Square Mile and overlooking a World Heritage site at the Tower of London. The hotel will be the only one of its kind serving the City and Canary Wharf.
"Thomas Enterprises and Woods Bagot have been working with English Heritage and the City of London to develop a design which removes unsympathetic Sixties extensions and restores the central rotunda space to the building, which was lost during the Blitz.
"This generous central space will become the new heart of the building, and rival the scale of the Reading Room in the Great Court of the British Museum."
Reader views (8)
The beauty of a city relies in the display of the various layers that have designed it throughout its various eras, witness of its history. That’s what makes London the unique and beautiful city that it is today, that’s what built its economy, brought tourism, dynamism and jobs. Building restoration is the ULTIMATE sustainable act that architects can engage into. Why not giving new life to an abandoned building, recycling its spaces and acknowledge its layers of time?
As far as its aesthetics, it retains its original structure and fabric, replaces the blasted original rotunda with a glass rotunda, and adds a glass canopy, which is an appropriate 21st century architectural renovation response, using 21st century technologies and materials. This building is definitely telling the story of its life, from its first use, to its scares inflicted during war time, to its rebirth today. So Mr. and Mrs. Conservatives, before posting negative comments, and getting overwhelmed with your subjective opinions, learn how to look at the big picture, and try to understand what lies behind the architectural response. That would be a lot more productive, and I’m sure you could learn A LOT!
- Raphaelle, London
I use to work in that building years ago. Glad to see the old beauty will be given a new lease of life and everyone can enjoy the inside aswell as the outside. A shiny new jewel in the old crown.
- Jackie, North London
What a fantastic design - So good to see a youthful modern approach which respects the old. So glad its not your typical brick and stone pastiche, you see around London. If this looks like a greenhouse!? wish we had more of them around the town! Wow - bringing the building back to life with an added sparkle.
- Phil, London
A huge old warehouse was converted into a hotel in Venice, but the external structure was retained in its original form. There will come a time when Londoners will no longer be able to recognise their own city. Tourism will suffer as a result.
- Mark, Venice, Italy
It's not vadalism. The building has been vacant for years, so why not develope it into something useful and improve the local environment. The negativity of a majority of Londoners is so boring. If i had millions, I would convert a grade I* into a palace, bigger and better than the Queens.
- N, London
As long as he's spending his own money - rather than the hard hit tax-payer's - then let him do what he wants. With the economy where it is at the moment, there's going to be no shortage of hotel rooms in the City ....
- Marianne (Uk National And Tax-Payer), SW France/London
This is a grade II* building - one down from the very highest listing. How can any developer be permitted to gut it in this way leave just a 'stage set' of the Edwardian original? This isn't refurbishment, it's vandalism.
- R N Walker, London, UK
It looks like a greenhouse. It should be made of stone and brick like the rest of the building and the ones surrounding it. Ugly.
- Susan, London
