The Lloyd’s Building: Inside Out

when you lamented that the design of the building placed the burden of its design on the public rather than on the owners and the interior; the entire point of the building became instantly clear

I think it’s fascinating and I never grow tired looking at it. That said, I’m glad there’s only one of them.

Such an excellent example of urban oil refinery design.

I wouldn’t love if every building was built this way, but I as a one-off I actually quite like it. It’s interesting and unique, and a lot of care clearly went into its design. Life would be boring if everything was just built to fit in with the buildings around it.

"It's all terribly postmodern, darling" Dang...on rewatching, what a line that I thought I'd never hear!

Spot on video and comments. I remember a contemporary quip that the building was intended to commemorate Lloyds' beginnings in a coffee shop... by looking like a coffee machine.

If I was a big evil corporation, I would want a building similar to it. Though, it'd have to be atop a volcano, of course.

It's a horrible building and I love it.

One assumes that if you're in the business of underwriting ships, you can pretty much design your building any way you'd like...the clients will come to you regardless...where else are they going to go? That being said, it is certainly a very distinctive design...quintessentially 80s techno-cyberpunk...it also evokes Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis...

In the age of faceless, monolithic glass prisms this is the most inventive building to come out of the late 20th Century in the City. It's as intriguing to the mind as an human anatomy doll where you can explore what it takes for a breathing, living organisms to function.

I was working nearby, on the construction of the Standard Chartered bank, while the Lloyds building was still going up. I think it was Costain who had the main contract for Lloyds - orange hard-hats everywhere - and they had a magnificent canteen in the building. Complete with a staff of middle-aged ladies, it resembled a Lyon's Corner House from the 50-60s. The menu was simply amazing and the low prices even more so. I know all this because a small number of us took to eating there! The SCB's contractor's canteen was like "Grease with everything" and so the appeal was obvious, and who doesn't like eating-out anyway? We had a few problems with getting onto the site - but who questions a bunch of hard-hatted, mortar-spattered chaps with hard-hats and tape-measures hung about them, heading for breakfast? We got questioned, and our response that we were bricklayers drew a reply to the effect that there no bricks involved in the construction. One of us responded that we were working down below fashioning a new sewer outfall and got believed and that was that for a glorious few weeks until the union got involved. By then we had taken to eating lunch there too. On a Friday lunch-time a portly gent got up and addressed the room thus - "Brothers, we will now call a meeting regarding the dismissal of two of our brothers and what action we should take ....." and so on. We, the naughty brickies from across the square, got up to leave which invoked cries of protest from the gathering, until we said that "We don't work here mates, we have to get back or we'll be sacked", at which they all laughed and let us go immediately. I might have heard "feck off an don't come back" a couple of times, but we weren't about to chance our arms again...

A new building was "thrown up" in its place. Definitely the best way to describe it in this case.

I think there's beauty in being able to see and appreciate all of the different systems and utilities that make a structure function. Being able to bring a building that looks like it belongs in a graphic novel into the physical world is pretty cool to me.

As someone who works in this building I can assure you no thought was put into the comfort of the people working inside. Turns out having the heating and AC into pipes exposed to outside cold temperatures/sunlight makes it pretty unpleasant. I would gladly see it demolished.

People talk about buildings 'fitting in' with the city; but that's what makes cities interesting. And even St Pauls doesn't 'fit in' with the city, when it was new it was like nothing else in the city, exactly what the church wanted.

I quite like the industrial design aesthetic. To me it looks like some sort of futuristic recycling plant.

I think that's a rather pessimistic way to see the design. I consider viewing this building to be like looking at a watch mechanism or a vintage engine. It celebrates the almost mathematical beauty of science and engineering.

The Lloyd’s building looks incredibly steampunk, it’s kinda cool in that regards.

I think it's fantastic and I'm glad it has been listed. The exposed ducting and structure may actually be less for functional reasons and more for aesthetic effect, but I appreciate how unique it is. It is so much more interesting and attractive that most of the bland, all-glass shapes that have gone up in the last 10-20 years.

What Richard Rogers builds: the Lloyds Building and the Pompidou Centre. Where Richard Rogers lives: a gracious 18th century Georgian row house.