Lloyd’s building

The insurance market Lloyd’s was given a building with its stairs, lifts and pipes on the outside. Inside opens an atrium under a vaulted glass roof, with escalators crossing the floors. The building shows the beauty of technology and stands in the City like a machine among the stone buildings.

Lloyd’s has been an insurance market since the 17th century and at the end of the 1970s needed a new building. Richard Rogers’s office won the commission in 1978, and the building went up in 1978–1986. Rogers had earlier designed the Centre Pompidou with Renzo Piano, and he brought with him the idea of placing the services on the outside.

The building has a large atrium in the middle, with office floors around it and a vaulted glass roof at the top. Escalators cross the atrium. Stair towers, lifts, toilets and services are in six towers on the outside of the building, so that the floors inside are left free. The façades are of stainless steel and glass. At the top is the Adam Room, a dining room designed by Robert Adam in 1763 for the country house Bowood House, which has been moved into the building.

In 2011 the Lloyd’s building became the youngest building in England to be listed at the highest grade. It is one of the best-known works of high-tech architecture and has influenced many later office buildings. Rogers received the Pritzker Prize in 2007. The building shows how architects at the end of the 20th century wanted to make technology and structure visible.

• Contemporary architecture
• Richard Rogers