A “Quiet Victory”: National Provincial, Gibson Hall, and the Switch from Comprehensive Redevelopment to Urban Preservation in 1960s London

Abstract

The Victorian City of London’s financial center expanded and renewed its building infrastructure virtually unimpeded by considerations of urban preservation, conservation, or public opinion. The next phase of massive rebuilding, during the long post-1945 boom, appeared likely to follow the same pattern. However, by the mid-1960s, the freedom of City office owner-occupiers and developers to do as they wished with their buildings had become substantially constrained by rising conservationist sentiment. This paper explores this process through the history of the design, building, and eventual aborted demolition of Gibson Hall, the Bishopsgate headquarters of National Provincial Bank for over a century. This paper charts the life of Gibson Hall, in particular its conception, design, and, ultimately, its attempted redevelopment. We also consider the long-term consequences of the rebalancing between economic and conservation objectives for the nature of British urban redevelopment and the adoption of a “throwaway” business headquarters style—to remove any risk of popular support for preservation.

Review of periodical literature for 2022: (vi) post‐1945

“…They find that these women held a ‘vernacular’ feminism focused on autonomy and being seen as an equal to their husbands, rather than positions that emphasized economic equality such as in second‐wave feminism. Barnes and Newton, use the Barclays archives to examine the introduction of uniformed female personal bankers in 1977. The objective was to make banking more accessible, counteracting elite stereotypes, but the uniformed women were sexualized in some Barclays advertising.…”

“…On the built environment, Kefford shows how the success of the Arndale Property Company, which developed American‐inspired shopping centres from 1950 to 1990, depended on a privileged relationship with the public sector. Barnes et al., explore the opposition to the destruction of the National Provincial headquarters in the City of London in the mid‐1960s, attributing it in part to a rising conservationist ethos shaped by the devastation of World War II.…”