2 September 2022 · By Will Ing

Campaigners have written to Islington councillors in a last-ditch attempt to save a ‘characterful’ Postmodern office block from a ‘bland’ AHMM-designed redevelopment

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) wants to replace Angel Square, a five-storey office block featuring a sundial and a campanile-style clocktower, completed by Rock Townsend in 1991. The building occupies a prominent corner at the crossroads of Islington High Street and City Road by Angel tube station.

A new office scheme would re-use the existing reinforced concrete frame but create a six-storey office building with a ‘new identity’. The application is backed by American real estate giant Tishman Speyer and was recommended for approval at Islington Council’s planning committee on Monday (5 September).

SAVE Britain’s Heritage has written to members of the planning committee and urged them to halt AHMM’s plans – saying there are ample grounds to reject the application on heritage and townscape grounds.

The charity says Angel Square should be considered a non-designated heritage asset, adding: ‘The bland glass and steel corporate style block proposed is of a considerably larger size and bears no relationship to or respect for the historic character of this sensitive location.’

Henrietta Billings, director of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, said: ‘We believe this great civic location at the gateway to Islington deserves a building of commensurate landmark quality, not bland “anywhere architecture”.

‘It’s totally unjustifiable to partially demolish a perfectly good building barely 30 years old. New development here should be capitalising on the merits of the existing building – and using it as an exemplar retrofit project to provide high-grade office space and other uses.’

However, a planning report for the AHMM scheme said it should be approved due to a 7,462m2 uplift in commercial floorspace and the ‘enhancement to the appearance of the façades of the building’.

Other reasons it gave for approval include the increased activation of the site’s Islington High Street frontage; provision of new affordable workspace; ‘significant’ improvements to public realm; and improvements to energy efficiency in the operation of the building.

The report points out the existing building ‘is neither listed, nor locally listed nor in a conservation area’ adding that the council’s key objective for development at the site is ‘improvements to the building’s façades and a better relationship with the public realm’.

The application has received 21 objection comments, including from The Twentieth Century Society, which said: ‘The proposals fail to explore any opportunity for a more understated reconfiguration of the building to address [issues with services and a tired interior].’

AHMM said in a design and access statement that it wants to ‘reimagine’ the current building as a ‘a piece of exemplar architectural and sustainable design’, arguing that its façade, M&E and services have reached the end of their design life.

The UK’s fourth largest architect also said it plans ‘establish architectural quality to create a new identity for this prominent location, and one that complements and contributes to its context and surrounding heritage assets’.

AHMM has been approached for comment.

Tags AHMM Islington office design planning consultation

As Venturi said ” less is a bore”. Modernist architecture as practiced in the New London Architecture style just doesn’t cut it with the complexity of this site. Back to school folks and learn how to turn a corner and not bore the pants off passers by with timid self censored expressionless lobotomised inadequacy. Gehry would cry, but for a completely different reason than he did at Ronchamp.

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