The Willis Building (originally the Willis Faber & Dumas regional headquarters) in

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

, England, is one of the earliest buildings designed by

Norman Foster Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Nor ...

and Wendy Cheesman after establishing Foster Associates. Constructed between 1970 and 1975 for the insurance firm now known as

Willis Towers Watson Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company is a British-American multinational insurance advisor company. The company was founded in 2016, following a merger of the Willis Group and Towers Watson. Overview WTW operates in more than 140 co ...

, it is now seen as a landmark in the development of the 'high tech' architectural style. The building houses some 1,300 office staff in open-plan offices spread over three floors.

Location

The bulbous floor plan of the office block reflects the layout of the available site in the centre of Ipswich, which is sandwiched between several road junctions and the Grade I

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

Unitarian Meeting House, one of Ipswich's oldest surviving buildings. Thus two of the town's Grade I listed buildings stand side by side.

Design

The centre of the building is constructed from a grid of concrete pillars, 14 m (46 ft) apart, supporting

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

concrete slab A concrete slab is a common structural element of modern buildings, consisting of a flat, horizontal surface made of cast concrete. Steel- reinforced slabs, typically between 100 and 500 mm thick, are most often used to construct floors and ...

floors. The curtain wall exterior is clad in panels of dark

smoked glass Smoked glass is glass held in the smoke of a candle flame (or other inefficiently burning hydrocarbon) such that one surface of the sheet of glass is covered in a layer of smoke residue. The glass is used as a medium for recording pen traces in sc ...

. The use of dark glass, a curtain wall and lack of right angle corners mirrors the

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

Express Building Express or EXPRESS may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * '' Express: Aisle to Glory'', a 1998 comedy short film featuring Kal Penn * '' The Express: The Ernie Davis Story'', a 2008 film starring Dennis Quaid Music * ''Express'' ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, cited by Norman Foster as one of his favourite buildings and a design influence. The central

escalator An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...

well leads up to a rooftop staff restaurant surrounded by a rooftop garden
360 panorama
. Originally, there was also a swimming pool for employees to enjoy during their lunch break. This has now been covered up (not filled in due to it being a listed building) and the space is used for more offices. The swimming pool can be seen underneath the false floor.

History

In 1991 the Willis building became the youngest building to be given

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

status in Britain. At the time it was one of only two listed buildings under 30 years of age.

References

ConcreteCentre.com

Project description from Foster + Partner

External links

BBC Four episode of series ''Building Sights'' on the Willis Building, presented by Zaha Hadid
* {{Coord, 52.0556, N, 1.1507, E, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Office buildings completed in 1975 Grade I listed buildings in Ipswich Grade I listed office buildings Foster and Partners buildings Office buildings in Ipswich

Location

Design

History

See also

References

External links