The headquarters of the Rothschild family bank

The building is the first realization of Rem Koolhaas / OMA in Great Britain. The Rothschild family called on architects to design a headquarters that would combine all offices in the city under one roof as early as 2005. The construction took place quietly, without pre-project analyses, as it does not exceed the height that would disrupt the established vertical limit of the LVMF / London View Management Framework/. It deviates from the trend of low-rise development in the area around St. Paul's Cathedral, occupying entire plots with a lack of public spaces. Despite this fact, the building dominates the location in the context of St. Stephen Walbrook Church, also by Christopher Wren, whose site is strongly accentuated by a clean, elegant mass expression. The original tendency to close off St. Swithin's Lane pedestrian street was abandoned. 13,000 m² is custom-designed into four blocks of varying heights, creating a dignified space around the church. The ground floor was enlarged and an uninterrupted passage to its courtyard was created. The basic mass has a height of 7 stories, to which additive masses of separate functional units (reception, elevators, café, fitness center) are connected. The building lacks extravagance. It has a minimalist, neutral expression that is not a common feature of buildings in the financial sector. The visual hallmark of the headquarters is a four-story sky pavilion with panoramic views of the London City, with open management workspaces and a restaurant. The box is supported by a passing core of the main building and subtle square-profile columns. The opening of the building was scheduled for the 10th anniversary of the fall of Yamasaki's New York twin towers, and the façade of the main mass just refers to this event.