The City of London Corporation has recommended for approval plans to relocate nine listed murals to make way for a redevelopment of Goldman Sachs’ Fleet Building, EC4.
City planners recommended listed building consent be granted for the “removal and safe storage of the ceramic panels”, which adorn the eastern elevation of the Fleet Building at 40 Shoe Lane and 70 Farringdon Street, subject to a section 106 agreement.
The application will be heard tomorrow by the Corporation’s planning committee.
The murals, by artist Dorothy Annan, celebrate the building’s original purpose as Europe’s largest telephone exchange and were granted Grade 2 listed status last autumn, raising fears they could hinder the US bank’s major redevelopment plans.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport followed advice from English Heritage that the nine ceramic tile murals, which depict pylons, cables, telegraph poles and generators, were of “historic interest” to the telecoms industry and had “relative rarity as surviving works of 1960s mural art”.
But despite the murals’ listing, Goldman has been undeterred and appointed architect Kohn Pedersen Fox to work up plans for a 1m sq ft headquarters earlier this year.
The former BT telephone exchange will be transformed into Goldman’s European HQ, due for completion in around 2017.
jack.sidders@estatesgazette.com
