The most hated building in London

The old Department of the Environment building on Marsham Street in Westminster, sometimes called the Marsham Towers, gained a reputation as the most hated building in London for several reasons:

The complex was a 1970s brutalist project, three 22-storey concrete slab towers sitting on a massive podium. These towers were widely considered an example of the worst of the brutalist style.

They were of monolithic grey concrete with a repetitive, harsh façade, giving an impersonal, fortress-like feel. They were of an overbearing scale in an historic area. The then Prince Charles famously called similar blocky postwar government architecture “piles of concrete.”

It was visually oppressive in Westminster because the building loomed over a neighbourhood of Georgian and Victorian streets, making it feel completely out of place. Locals complained it dominated the skyline and cast shadows over nearby homes.

Brown stains disfigured the grey concrete as it aged in London’s climate. Netting was placed around the towers so that passers-by would not be injured by pieces of decaying concrete that fell off.

It had bad functionality, too. The towers weren't just ugly; they reportedly worked poorly as office space with long, confusing corridors, outdated ventilation and heating, and an inefficient layout.

They stood out as a symbol of government bureaucracy. For many Londoners, they came to symbolize cold central government bureaucracy, a physical metaphor for the distance between government and its citizens.

The building was demolished in 2003, replaced by 2 Marsham Street, now home to the Home Office. Few mourned its loss; many celebrated it.

I remembered two stories about it. I was briefing the Secretary of State, Patrick Jenkin, on the top floor of it. He said, “look at that view,” and I replied, “Yes, best view in London.” He got the joke immediately and laughed, the point being that it was the only place in London where you couldn’t see the Department of the Environment.

 The other was from Michael Heseltine, who, when he departed as Secretary of State for the Environment, commented that best thing he’d done for the environment was to sign the demolition order on the Department’s building.

 Madsen Pirie