Shell Mex House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shell Mex House is at 80, Strand, London, UK. Broadly speaking in an Art Deco style, it was designed by Ernest Joseph, a Jewish architect who was a leading designer of synagogues, including the Art Deco-style synagogue at Sheepcote Street, Birmingham, and the classical-style synagogue in St. John's Wood Road, London (of which only the facade remains).
The current building was completed in 1930–31 on the site of the Cecil Hotel (so called because it was built on the site of Cecil House), and stands between the Adelphi building and the Savoy Hotel.
Standing 58 m (190 ft) tall, with 550,000 sq ft of floor space, Shell Mex House has 12 floors (plus basement and sub-basement) and is immediately recognizable from the River Thames and the South Bank by the clock tower positioned on the south side of the building (flanked by two large, hieratic figures at the south corners). In the words of architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, the building "is thoroughly unsubtle, but succeeds in holding its own in London's river front."
The building was for many years the London headquarters of Shell-Mex and BP Ltd for whom it was originally built. Shell-Mex and BP Ltd was a Joint Venture company created by Shell and British Petroleum in 1932 to market petroleum products in the British Isles. On the "Brand Separation" of Shell-Mex and BP Ltd in 1975, Shell Mex House became the head office of Shell UK Ltd, which is Shell's "UK operating company". Changes in the way that Shell was run in the 1990s led to the disposal of the property by Shell and today most of its floors are occupied by companies of Pearson PLC, including Penguin Books.
During the Second World War, the building became home to the Ministry of Supply which co-ordinated supply of equipment to the national armed forces. It was also the home of the "Petroleum Board" which handled the distribution and rationing of petroleum products during the war. It was badly damaged by a bomb in 1940. The building reverted to Shell-Mex and BP Ltd on 1 July 1948 with a number of floors remaining occupied by the Ministry of Aviation (latterly the Board of Trade, Civil Aviation Division) until the mid 1970s.
On 17 May 2006 The Times reported that the building was for sale and that the Indian-Kenyan Kandhari family were the front-runners in the battle to buy the it from the present owners, Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz. It was said that they had offered £530,000,000 for the building but were competing with other interested groups, including Menorah, the Israeli insurer, an Irish company, and several British companies. An offer believed to be £520,000,000 ($1.02 billion) was made in December 2006 by Istithmar, the investment agency of the Dubai government, who withdrew their offer before completion.
