THE HOOVER BUILDING
LOL you'll be sick and tired of Art Deco by the time I've finished this blog!
The Hoover Building was designed for the Hoover Company by the celebrated art-deco architectural practice Wallis, Gilbert & Partners. Completed in 1932, it was originally commissioned as a factory complex with production, storage and repairs at ground floor level and offices above. Listed in 1980, the Grade II building was in use until the late 1980’s. The original production area was then converted into a Tesco superstore and the Hoover Building to the front is effectively self-contained, once offices, now apartments. The extensive art-deco features on the exterior and in the common parts have been carefully restored. Even the Tesco at the rear, is very sympathetic to the building.
Once, the A40, the Great West Road, was lined by factories such as this. Sadly, this is one of the very few remaining, and I'm glad it's been protected and restored.
I'm sorry there are so many pictures (NOT!) but every square inch, even round the back at the supermarket, is just full of graceful architectural details
The London-based architectural partnership – initially Wallis, Gilbert & Partner, singular – had been founded in 1916, primarily for the purpose of collaborating with an American company that specialised in providing the reinforcement technology and materials for large concrete factories.
The partnership was commissioned to work on several monumental projects, including Victoria coach station and factories for Wrigley’s chewing gum in Wembley, the Gramophone Company in Hayes, and Firestone tyres, Pyrene fire extinguishers and Coty cosmetics, all on the Great West Road. Incidentally, there’s no evidence that there ever was a Gilbert at Wallis, Gilbert and Partners, nor that there was originally any other partner. Gilbert and his anonymous colleague may have been invented by the genuine founder, Thomas Wallis, simply to make his practice sound bigger than it was.
The partnership was commissioned to work on several monumental projects, including Victoria coach station and factories for Wrigley’s chewing gum in Wembley, the Gramophone Company in Hayes, and Firestone tyres, Pyrene fire extinguishers and Coty cosmetics, all on the Great West Road. Incidentally, there’s no evidence that there ever was a Gilbert at Wallis, Gilbert and Partners, nor that there was originally any other partner. Gilbert and his anonymous colleague may have been invented by the genuine founder, Thomas Wallis, simply to make his practice sound bigger than it was.
Vacuum cleaner production ceased in 1982 and the Hoover factory closed. It reopened ten years later – magnificently restored, with the rear ground floor converted into a Tesco superstore.
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