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:
“The Empress is Legitimist, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte III (1808–1873)
“Thus we steadily worship Mammon, both school and state and church, and on the seventh day curse God with a tintamar from one end of the Union to the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence, like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)