Sainsbury's supermarket, Camden is an architecturally notable

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

building in

Camden Road Camden Road is a main road in London running from the junction of Camden High Street and Camden Town Underground station up to Holloway Road. It is part of the A503 which continues east as Tollington Road. History The route was created and d ...

, north London, and is part of the

J Sainsbury J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...

chain. It was designed by

Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, CBE, PPRA (born 9 October 1939) is a prominent English architect, particularly noted for several modernist buildings, including London's Waterloo International railway station and the Eden Project in Cornwall. He was Pre ...

and was completed in 1988, on the site of the former

Aerated Bread Company The Aerated Bread Company Ltd (A.B.C.) was a British company founded and headquartered in London. Although it is often remembered as running a large chain of tea rooms in Britain and other parts of the world, it was originally established in 1 ...

Camden Town bakery. In 2019 it became the first purpose built supermarket to be Grade II listed for its futuristic architecture.

Overview

The present supermarket building at 17-21 Camden Road was completed in 1988 for J Sainsbury, two years after construction began by

Wimpey George Wimpey was a British construction firm. Formed in 1880 and based in Hammersmith, it initially operated largely as a road surfacing contractor. The business was acquired by Godfrey Mitchell in 1919, and he developed it into a constructio ...

. It is a

High-tech architecture High-tech architecture, also known as structural expressionism, is a type of late modernist architecture that emerged in the 1970s, incorporating elements of high tech industry and technology into building design. High-tech architecture grew fro ...

structure, with use of exposed steel, aluminium panels and glass. It has a sales area of 30,883 sq ft with underground parking for 299 cars. The site also an includes a row of terrace houses (1-12 Grand Union Walk), the Grand Union House office block and a small crèche building comprising a row of studio spaces, for a site bounded by the

Grand Union Canal The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter st ...

and two of Camden's busiest roads. The building was announced as Grade II listed on 19 July 2019 by

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

. The listing had been proposed by the

Twentieth Century Society The Twentieth Century Society (C20) is a British charity which campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage from 1914 onwards. The society's interests embrace buildings and artefacts that characterise 20th-century Britain. It is form ...

to block proposals to re-develop the site, which included the high-tech supermarket.

Construction

In the early 1980s J Sainsbury took ownership of the former

Camden Town bakery building in the heart of Camden, which had ceased production in 1982, with a view to developing a supermarket on the site. The site was a roughly triangular site bounded on two sides by busy roads and on the third by the

. In April 1985 Sainsbury's obtained outline planning permission for a scheme by Scott Brownrigg and Turner, but this was rejected by Sainsbury's newly established vetting committee, chaired by the architecture critic Colin Amery, who reported directly to Sainsbury's Chairman Sir John Sainsbury. Detailed planning permission was granted in May 1986, to designs by

, having been commended by the Royal Fine Art Commission as an "example of bold and enlightened patronage", even though it was opposed by the Regent's Canal Conservation Advisory Group. Construction began in August 1986, with

as the main contractor. Construction was completed in 1988 and the store was opened on 12 December 1988 by the then Sainsbury's Joint Managing Director Joe Barnes. On opening, it was described by

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

newspaper as being "Building of the year".

References

External links

* Sainsbury's London Borough of Camden Nicholas Grimshaw buildings Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Camden Buildings and structures completed in 1988 Grocery store buildings High-tech architecture {{London-struct-stub