Sunday, January 30, 2011

The BBC's New £1 Billion Broadcasting House In London- By: Sana Naseer Shaikh

BBC's New £ 1 Billion Broadcasting House In London

Capture a give the impression of being at the BBC's contentious and spectacular £1bn extension of its central London headquarters, The new BBC Broadcasting House, So what does £ 1 billion pay money for? It was 10 years in the manufacture, it cost a affluence and it nowhere to be found its architect along the way. But the BBC's new Broadcasting House is as a final point over and done with.The outlook of the building designed by architect Sheppard Robson  from Portland Place.




The view of the building – designed by architect Sheppard Robson – from Portland Place. Over the last 10 years or so, amid rising controversy, the BBC has spent £1.04bn refurbishing and extending its ocean-liner-like HQ



The aim of this eye-popping expenditure is to bring TV, radio and online operations together, increasing efficiency while reducing costs, by getting rid of a plethora of properties across town


Tiers of glazed offices surround it from great heights, some floors reached by balletic spiral stairs crafted in oak, glass and steel





Since then, Mark Thompson has taken over, while the original architects – MacCormac Jamieson Prichard (MJP), a medium-sized practice best known for high-quality designs for colleges – were replaced in 2005 by Sheppard Robson, an experienced corporate giant



Because the public pays for the BBC, the new Broadcasting House has been made accessible, in no uncertain manner. Not only will the public be able to gaze into the News Room, they will also be able to attend concerts, and see an ambitious collection of artworks incorporated into the buildings





In 2013, some 5,000 journalists, programme-makers, managers and other staff will be shipped here from historic BBC buildings elsewhere, including Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush and Bush House in Aldwych, home of the World Service



The overall feeling is of a sleek corporate HQ, but one with a huge technical plant set within, where things in this case programmes are made



With its vast pillars, spiralling staircases, and towering lift shafts painted red and orange, this cavernous, boldly modern space seems more like a submarine dock, the sort of place you might expect a James Bond shoot-out to take place, rather than somewhere for Huw Edwards to calmly read the news


The project has quite a history. It had been mooted when John Birt was the BBC's director general in the 1990s, but finally took shape in 2002, after a much-heralded architectural competition when Greg Dyke was at the helm

No comments:

Post a Comment