City Point - Ropemaker Street

Architect	F. Milton Cashmore and H.N.W. Grosvenor
Date Built	1967
Location	1 Ropemaker Street
Description
Built in the 1960s for British Petroleum this was once the tallest building in the city. It was originally called the Britannic Tower and was a 35-storey, 122 metres tall rectangular slab of a building. It was built around two concrete cores and required plant rooms on every ten storeys. In 1996 BP left the building and sold it for £300 million to Wates City of London Properties.Wates turned to the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to add to the available office space while giving the building a facelift. His design is described by the City Point website as "pure Star Wars" since it involved, " ... a new spine on the southern end, which would support a restaurant cantilevering into space and above all that was to be an enormous fin which would reach up to a height of 203 meters." The design was rejected by the Corporation of London's planning department. Wates turned to Sheppard Robson to salvage the project and their design was acceptable even though it incorporated many of the aspects of the Calatrava design including the two twelve storey wings at the base with their sloping ribs. A new extension rounded the southern end and a wing-like modification to the roof reduced the slab-like appearance. Now known as City Point it is currently the fifth tallest building in the City and the thirteenth tallest in Greater London.