The Empress State Building is a skyscraper in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was built in 1961 and was 100 metres (328 ft) tall with 28 floors, designed by Stone, Toms & Partners. It was renovated in 2003 to a design by Wilkinson Eyre Architects. Three floors and 17.3 metres (57 ft) were added to its height. 'Orbit' is the name given to the private revolving bar on the top floor which offers panoramic views of London.
The building is named after the Empress Hall which formerly stood on the site, and in tribute to the Empire State Building.
The building is occupied by staff from the Metropolitan Police Service who refer to it as ESB – also the name of a local beer, Fuller's ESB. Some of the upper floors were occupied by staff from Transport for London until 2010.
This building was originally designed as a hotel but was first used by the Admiralty and GCHQ. The Directorate of Naval Shore Telecommunications (formerly the Naval Shore Telecommunications Authority) Had their National HQ office here in the 80's & 90's.
Famous quotes containing the words empress, state and/or building:
“We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside our skin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents. They can see behind the mask of adulthood. To her mommy and daddy, the empress never has on any clothes—and knows it.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)