Faraday Building

The Faraday Building is in the southwest of the City of London close to St Paul's Cathedral. The land was first acquired by the General Post Office in the 1870s, for the Post Office Savings Bank.

In 1902 it was converted to a GPO telephone exchange serving sections of London, and underwent several capacity expansions over the next several years. The eastern extension of the building stands on the site of Doctors' Commons whose members had lower-courts say in ecclesiastical (including, during its currency, probate and divorce) and admiralty matters.

In 1933 the original building was rebuilt to house the International Telephone Exchange, more than doubling the size of the building as a whole. The new building included a raised central portion with decorative turrets which was highly controversial at the time as it blocked the view of St Paul's Cathedral from the River Thames. This led to a new law that restricted the height of new buildings in London to protect the sightlines of the Cathedral.

Although generally five stories high, the central section and rectangular turrets roughly double that and remain a high point in the area in spite of a century of new building in the area. It fronts Queen Victoria Street and backs onto Knightrider Street. The complex is one narrow block west from Peter's Hill which is the northern footpath to/from the Millennium Bridge; the College of Arms stands in the intervening space.

BT Group (which took over the General Post Office's telephone services in the early 1980s) still uses the building, although today it is rented as general offices and retail space.

History

Architecture and streetscape

The building is cream-coloured. It has one-bay chamfered corners on its east side (Godliman Street) which mean the footprint of the building is, at fine level, an irregular hexagon rather than its general form of a slightly tapering rectangle. Its southwestern quarter hosts bays that rise (a further five) to ten storeys, with rectangular turrets and recessed upper storeys. The windows across the western "half" of the building give away its on average lower ceiling height and this section slightly projects from the rest of the main, long, façade (which was added a few years later).

One building is attached, the older № 146 Queen Victoria Street,[5] which matches in colour and has been adapted as a place of Scientology training.

The construction of the Faraday Building obscured the riverside view of upper parts of St Paul's Cathedral. This led directly to regulations protecting views to and from the dome from a number of vantage points by restricting the height of new buildings constructed in certain designated areas.[6] The City of London School and another telephone exchange, Baynard House, were built between the riverside and Faraday Building but are restricted in height to just three levels above ground.