Midland Bank Headquarters (Former), London



Architect
Edwin Lutyens
Date Built
1924 - 1939
Location
27 - 35 Poultry & 5 Prince's Street
Description
The Pevsner Guide to the City of London describes the buildfing as featuring, "... Large arched ground floor with recessed entrance and the architects favoutite disappearing Doric Pilasters.  Big Keystones with carved heads to the windows.  ..........



........  Mezzanine above with scallop-shaped keystones,  .....



 ..... then three storeys made into one by tall unadorned arches with banded rustrication, the heighht of both stone blocks and storeys gradually and very subtly diminishing. .....



.... Each end is rebated above the mezzanine, to accommodate the figure of a fat boy with a goose designed by Lutyens and carved by Sir William Reid Dick. 








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Following its life as a bank, the building sat unoccupied for a number of years until in 2012 Nick Jones. the founder of Soho House & Co, discovered it.  This led to Jones collaborating with Andrew Zobler, of New York's Sydell Group, in a project to transform Lutyens' Grade I Listed building into the 5* Ned Hotel with 252 rooms, ranging in size from the imtimate to large scale suites, nine restaurants and a member's club.   As the hotel's website explains, "... Jones and Zobler were immediately inspired by Sir Edwin 'Ned' Lutyens' masterpiece at 27 Poultry – all 29,450 square metres of it. 'It was the most beautiful building I'd ever seen,' says Jones. Zobler adds: 'The architecture is outstanding and so well preserved. You can't help but fall in love with it.'"  The name is a nod to the architect Edwin "Ned" Lutyens.  The links below provide you with views of the restored building's interior.


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