Drapers Gardens is a site in the City of London at the junction of Throgmorton Avenue and Copthall Avenue on land owned by the Drapers' Company, originally forming gardens but used for major office blocks from the 1960s.
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Drapers Gardens was a skyscraper in the City of London, designed by architect Richard Seifert. It stood at 100 metres (328 ft) tall and had 30 storeys. It was completed in 1967 and demolished in 2007.[1] It holds the current record for the tallest building to be demolished in the UK, surpassing Limebank House which stood at 93 metres (305 ft) tall.
Until the skyscraper was built the site had been undeveloped since Roman times, as it was waterlogged by tributaries of the River Walbrook.
When viewed from Waterloo Bridge (as in the photograph below), Drapers Gardens appeared as the closest office tower to St Paul's Cathedral. For this reason it was disliked by many people. Conversely, there were those who cited the building as a fine example of its period and one of the few genuinely well-designed towers of the 1960s. Richard Seifert, its designer as well as the architect of Tower 42, described the Drapers Gardens' skyscraper as his proudest achievement.[2]
The replacement Drapers Gardens is only 75 metres (246 ft) tall with 16 floors, three roof terraces and a pocket park, but at 270,000 square feet (25,000 m2) will have more floor space. It is designed by Foggo Associates. The developers are Exemplar Developments and Canary Wharf Developments, with completion planned for Autumn 2009. The development was then sold on to Evans Randall in 2010 for £242.5 million.[3] Most of the floors of the building were originally taken by Macquarie.,[4] however BlackRock subsequently made a higher offer.[5]
Between the demolition and rebuilding, an archaeological dig by Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd found Roman remains dating from 63 AD to 383 AD. These included a well with 19 metal vessels in an exceptional state of preservation, a ruler and the skull of a bear.[6][7]