1 Canada Square

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Image:Night canary wharf london.jpg

1 Canada Square is the tallest building in London. Identifiable from a great distance as a pencil shaped tower with a flashing light on top (for aircraft), this building is a monument to 1980s style capitalism. At 235 metres (771 ft) and 50 stories, it is the tallest habitable building in the United Kingdom (although the 330 metre tall Emley Moor television tower near Huddersfield is a taller structure). In 1990, it surpassed Tower 42 (183m / 600ft) to become the tallest building in both London and the United Kingdom.

Image:1 Canada Square - Canary Wharf - oblique - evening - London - 240404.jpg

The building now has two siblings that have sprung up alongside, which are not quite as tall (at 200 metres each, to 1 Canada Square's 240 metres; it's the pyramid that does it): HSBC Tower (8-16 Canada Square) and Citigroup Centre (25 Canada Square).

Despite its status as Britain's tallest building, there is no public observation floor; the view from the upper windows is the sole preserve of the building's tenants. However, mirroring New York's ill-fated World Trade Center, the ground floor, foyer area and basement levels of 1 Canada Square are open to the general public, housing an underground shopping mall and a transport interchange from Canary Wharf tube and Docklands Light Railway stations.

It was designed by the American architect César Pelli. It is named after Canada because it was built by the Canadian firm Olympia and York, which was owned by the Reichmann family. The company went bankrupt in the face of a property crash which caused the upper half of the tower to stand empty for some time following its completion in 1991.

The building is commonly known as the Canary Wharf Tower after the Canary Wharf business complex of which it is the most prominent feature. It is a conspicuous London landmark, clearly visible at a distance from large areas of South London in particular. It can even be seen from sections of the A2, a full 25 miles from its location.

In 1996, part of the Canary Wharf complex was attacked by the Provisional IRA; the tower itself was not damaged.

Image:Canarywharfview.jpg

In 2002, French urban climber, Alain Robert, using only his hands and feet and with no safety devices of any kind, scaled the building's exterior wall all the way to the top.

The building houses the offices of several financial institutions as well as several leading British Newspapers including The Daily Mirror, The Sunday Mirror, The Sunday People and The Daily (and Sunday) Telegraph.

Contents

General Information

  • The tower has 4,388 internal steps and 3,960 windows. 32 lifts are in use. The journey from the ground floor to the 50th takes 40 seconds if uninterrupted by lift (though no lift in the building vertically traverses the entire height of the structure).
  • The thirteenth floor contains only air conditioning equipment, though the owners insist that this is only an architectural coincidence, and not an instance of triskaidekaphobia.
  • The 11 metre (36 ft) high lobby is clad in 90,000 square feet of marble imported from Italy and Guatemala.
  • The aircraft warning light on at the tower's crown flashes 40 times a minute, 57,600 times a day.
  • Construction of the tower was halted from March to June 1990, when the building workers went on strike.
  • The tower's loading bay handles over 80,000 deliveries each year.
  • The 50th floor can be reached from the lobby by lift in 40 seconds.
  • One Canada Square was briefly Europe's tallest skyscraper until the erection of MesseTurm.

Companies Currently In the Building

See also

External links

Image:RoyalAlbertHall.jpg This article about a United Kingdom building or structure is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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