St. Giles Hotel

Architect: Elsworth Sykes
Date Completed: 1977
Listed status: Not listed

London was experiencing a boom in hotel development due to the increasing economic importance of attracting tourism. Many schemes of the time often received favourable planning consent and developers received government subsides per room as part of legislation brought in by the Development of Tourism Act of 1969. The original Edwardian Building on the site was demolished in 1971 to make way for The St. Giles Hotel, a new YMCA and shop fronts along Tottenham Court Road. Look above the hotel entrance on Bedford Place to view the symmetrical, narrow windowed towers covered in textured concrete, reminiscent, perhaps, of artex in concrete form. The building is composed of four towers arranged in parallel above a two-storey podium. The towers float on massive beams above a two-story podium allowing them to overhang the pavement. The towers are tapered at the ends to provide all of the hotel rooms with views of the street and to maximise natural light given the narrow windows. Additionally.

It occupies a city block stretching back from Tottenham Court Road. The mixed-use building is also home to the Central London YMCA and a variety of retail units. This was once the site of a grand Edwardian building that contained the earlier YMCA. Although the new development is much newer it seems to fit into the area among some much older neighbours. However “postwarbuildings.com” disagree describing it as “uncompromising” and “…does not sit easily with the accepted building forms around it. It does not adhere to the traditional rules of street architecture and follows its own logic to create an assertive form based around that of its function- to provide naturally lit rooms and lots of them.”

The "postwarbuildings.com" website adds that, "... The visual effect of the YMCA and St Giles complex is uncompromising. Recent attempts to soften the impact of so much exposed, hard edged concrete with such familiar devices as hanging baskets and planters has served only to make the whole appear slightly tawdry. Its brutal shape making and confident structural gesturing does not sit easily with the accepted building forms around it. It does not adhere to the traditional rules of street architecture and follows its own logic to create an assertive form based around that of its function- to provide naturally lit rooms and lots of them."