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Centre Point is a substantial concrete and glass office building in central London, England, occupying 101-103 New Oxford Street, WC1, close to St Giles Circus and almost directly above Tottenham Court Road tube station. The site was once occupied by a gallows.[1] The building was designed by Richard Seifert with engineers Pell Frischmann and was constructed by Wimpey Construction from 1963 to 1966. It is 117 m (385 ft) high, has 34 floors[2] and 27,180 m2 (292,563 sq ft) of floor space and is the joint 27th tallest building in London. It was one of the first skyscrapers in London. It is a grade II listed building

Centre Point was built as speculative office space by property tycoon Harry Hyams, who had leased the site at ?18,500 a year for 150 years. Hyams and Seifert engaged in negotiations with the London County Council over the height of the building, which was much taller than would normally be allowed and was highly controversial; eventually he was allowed to build 32 floors in return for providing a new road junction between St Giles Circus, Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, which the LCC could not afford to build on its own. Hyams intended that the whole building be occupied by a single tenant.

On completion, the building remained empty for many years. With property prices rising and most business tenancies taken for set periods of 10 or 15 years, Hyams could afford to keep it empty and wait for his single tenant at the asking price of ?1,250,000; he was challenged to allow tenants to rent single floors but consistently refused. The prominent nature of the building led to it becoming a symbol of greed in the property industry. Some campaigners demanded that the government of Edward Heath should intervene and take over the building, and at one point in June 1972 Peter Walker (then Secretary of State for the Environment) offered ?5 million for the building. Eventually Hyams agreed to let the building by floors but the arrangements were stalled.

A more intriguing speculation was that the government was paying Hyams "a heavy but secret subsidy to keep it empty" for its own purposes. Various conspiracy theories circulated about what those purposes might be. One common theme was that since the building was 100% air-conditioned (a rarity in London at that time), and sited over Tottenham Court Road tube station and its deep tube lines, this would somehow make it useful to the government in the event of nuclear war.

Since July 1980, the building has been the headquarters of the Confederation of British Industry. In 1995 Centre Point became a Grade II listed building. Noted architecture critic Nikolaus Pevsner described Centre Point as "coarse in the extreme". In 2009, the building won the Concrete Society's Mature Structures Award

Tate Modern (Herzog and de Meuron) and Millennium Bridge (Foster and Partners)

TATE MODERN 1998-2000:

Tate Modern is a powerful and dramatic combination of old and new architecture providing 10,000m2 of gallery space. The original Bankside power station was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1947. It was closed down in 1981 and stood unused on the side of the Thames until 1996 when the Tate trustees saw it as a potential site for a new art gallery to house the Tate collection of international modern art from 1900 to the present day.

Out of the six finalists Herzog and de Meuron were the only architects to suggest leaving the original power station building largely intact. Their strategy was based on accepting the power and energy of the original building whilst finding new ways to enhance and utilize these qualities - a conceptual rather than design-based approach. All of the original brickwork, windows and chimney have been renovated and retained. The original turbine hall has become the new entrance to the gallery as well as providing a vast exhibition space; visitors enter at one end and descend down a long gradual ramp before being carried upwards on escalators to the auditorium, shop, cafe and three floors of galleries above. Light-filled boxes attached to the sides of this huge space coincide with openings where visitors can look down on the turbine hall from the galleries above.

Internally Herzog and de Meuron have emphasized the industrial character of the building through their use of polished concrete, untreated wooden floors and plain light paintwork on the walls contrasting with black girders. Externally their major edition is the Swiss light, a two-story high glass roof beam that runs the whole length of the top of the building. This is the outward signal of the building's change in function providing excellent lighting to the top galleries. It also houses a cafe that has magnificent views across to St Paul's Cathedral on the other side of the river. At night this horizontal roof beam provides a distinctive addition to the London skyline.

MILLENNIUM BRIDGE 1996-2000:

The Millennium Bridge springs from a dynamic collaboration between engineering, art and architecture to provide the first new Thames crossing since Tower Bridge. A shallow suspension structure, it is designed to allow pedestrians unimpeded views up and down river. A thin ribbon of steel by day, it is illuminated to form a blade of light at night.

Co-architects: Sir Anthony Caro and Ove Arup & Partners