Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Why Lloyd's of London could be saying farewell to the iconic HQ designed to bring people together

Why Lloyd's of London could be saying farewell to the iconic HQ designed to bring people together

The Lloyd's Building's opening in 1986 symbolised the City of London's renaissance and heralded a wave of thrilling new developments across the Square Mile from Broadgate Circle to the Gherkin.

It is one of the most recognisable buildings in Britain.

The Lloyd's Building on Lime Street in the City, designed for the world's oldest insurance market by the visionary architect Richard Rogers, revolutionised the way we look at buildings by positioning lifts and ducts on the outside in order to maximise available space on the inside.

By the end of the decade, though, it may be being used by a different tenant from the one that provides its name.

The design revolutionised the way we look at buildings by positioning lifts and ducts on the outside


The market is holding a review in response to changing working habits and React News, the real estate market intelligence provider, reports that, although Lloyd's of London's lease on the building does not run out until 2031, there is a break in the contract that it could exercise in 2026 if it wants to leave early.

Lloyd's was quick to close its underwriting room - specifically designed to bring people together to write reinsurance contracts face to face - at the start of the pandemic.

From a capacity of up to 7,000 people in the room, prior to the pandemic, just several hundred people were working there by the middle of 2020.

Now the market is having to think about how many people, in future, will be seeking to locate themselves physically in the building.

Lloyd's said: "As we adapt to new structures and flexible ways of working, we are continuing to carefully think about the future requirements for the spaces and services our marketplace needs.

"Currently, like many other organisations, we are considering a range of options around our workspace strategy and the future leasing arrangements for Lloyd's."

Were Lloyd's to leave the Lloyd's Building, it would be an extraordinary moment.

The word iconic is overused, but when it comes to this building, it is entirely appropriate.

The Lloyd's Building, which took eight years to build at a cost of £75m, was a symbol of the City of London's renaissance when it was officially opened by the Queen on 18 November 1986.

Mrs Thatcher's Big Bang reforms had been enacted the previous month - unleashing competition across the Square Mile and attracting a wave of investment into the City by American, Japanese and German banks.

And, while Big Bang was a reform of equity markets and not insurance, the bold design of the Lloyd's Building was a supreme statement of confidence.

It projected to the outside world that the City, despite its institutions being centuries-old in some cases, was embracing modernity.

Like all great architectural works, it was not to everyone's taste, initially.

An un-named Lloyd's underwriter complained to the Financial Times shortly after relocating to the new headquarters that the building was dark and gloomy and suffered from poor air-conditioning, that the glass lifts were covered in bird droppings and looked "tatty" and that problems with the new escalators - a key part of the design - were taking it longer to transact business.

The Walkie-Talkie, the Cheesegrater and the Gherkin were part of a wave of transformation kicked off by the Lloyd's Building


This denizen of what was always regarded as a highly conservative institution grumbled: "I don't know whether the air-conditioning will work when the next heatwave comes along, but I suspect that even if it improves, we will still see people taking their jackets off.

"This never happened in all my 26 years in the old building."

The opening of the Lloyd's Building, though, heralded a wave of thrilling new buildings across the Square Mile and competition among architects and developers to come up with the most imaginative designs.

These transformed the City's landscape.

Hot on the heels of the Lloyd's Building came the Broadgate Circle, developed by Sir Stuart Lipton and Godfrey Bradman and designed by Arup, built on the site of the old Broad Street railway station.

Famous for its amphitheatre, which in the winter was host to what was London's first "turn up and skate" open ice rink, it too is now one of the City's most recognisable landmarks.

Across the City, meanwhile, the ugly concrete blocks that had sat alongside St Paul's Cathedral since the 1960s were torn down and replaced in 2003 by the striking Paternoster Square development, which quickly became the new home for the London Stock Exchange.

The following year, the development was completed when Sir Christopher Wren's historic Temple Bar Gate - the traditional entry point to the west of the Square Mile - was relocated there.

The design for No 1 Poultry was denounced by Prince Charles as resembling a '1930s wireless set'


These buildings and developments did not go up without what were often long and drawn-out hold-ups to the planning process.

One of the most bitter concerned the redevelopment of No 1 Poultry, next to the Mansion House, which had previously been a gothic Victorian building that housed the headquarters of jewellers Mappin and Webb.

It took several decades of campaigning by Lord Palumbo and the architect James Stirling to redevelop the site.

The design for the new building was denounced by Prince Charles as resembling a "1930s wireless set" but it is now so much a part of the City's fabric that its rooftop restaurant, Coq d'Argent, was even used as the site for the Queen's fictional helicopter departure point in the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

Other remarkable buildings followed as the City of London Corporation sought to out-do the giant glass and steel temples being erected a few miles to the east in Canary Wharf.

They included the Gherkin, which opened in April 2004 and the Heron Tower (now the Salesforce Tower), developed by Gerald Ronson and designed by the US architects Kohn Pederson Fox. It opened in 2011.

Next came the Walkie-Talkie (20 Fenchurch Street), which opened in April 2014 and the Cheesegrater (122 Leadenhall Street), which opened three months later.

More recently has come the stunning 22 Bishopsgate, the City's tallest building, developed by Sir Stuart Lipton and Peter Rogers, the younger brother of Richard Rogers.

This wave of transformation was all kicked off by the opening of the Lloyd's Building and it is no coincidence that the Gherkin, the Cheesegrater and the Walkie-Talkie, three of the most controversial of the new towers, are close to it in the EC3 postcode, long regarded as the City's "insurance quarter".

Lloyd's has been through much cultural change in recent years and a move away from its headquarters would no doubt be as much of wrench as it was to the crusty old underwriters who moved in there 35 years ago.

But it would be totally in keeping with the way this venerable City institution is evolving.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×