Planners will decide whether 50s block with links to The Clash should stay or go
AHMM proposals to redevelop a 1950s office building in Marylebone with a new seven-storey building that that will more than double the amount of floorspace are set to be given the go-ahead by Westminster City Council.
The practice’s plans for Lisson Grove would see the demolition of a Job Centre that formed the backdrop for one of the earliest meetings of key members of iconic 1970s punk band The Clash, when vocalist Joe Strummer feared his future bandmates were planning to mug him.
Purpose-built as a labour exchange, the four-storey structure is still home to a Job Centre Plus, as well as a Tesco convenience store. Neighbouring 18 Hayes Place – which is currently in use as a yoga studio, would also be demolished to make way for the new scheme, designed for Viridis Real Estate.
A report to Westminster council’s planning committee describes the existing four-storey building – which was one of the capital’s largest labour exchanges when it opened in 1960 – as “generally unwelcoming”.
AHMM’s proposals would deliver 10,201sq m of new office space and a new 423sq m shop unit, which would be slightly larger than the current Tesco branch. There would be no replacement facility for the yoga studio.
The practice’s designs will reuse the current building’s basement. But Westminster planning officers said the project team had been asked for further justification to support its claim that substantial demolition was required to meet energy and floorspace requirements for contemporary office space.
A report to tomorrow night’s planning committee meeting said: “The applicant confirmed that the existing structure is inefficient and substantial demolition is required to allow for the new building services and plant space in the basement to be provided.”
The report added that AHMM is proposing a hybrid cross-laminate and steel structure for the new block.
Recommending the scheme for approval, planning officers said AHMM’s proposals represented “high quality design” that was appropriate for the location, even though they acknowledged the new building would harm the setting of the nearby Chapel of St Edward’s Convent of Mercy, which is grade II listed.
“The proportions and regular fenestration pattern ensure that the new design sits comfortably with the adjacent Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian buildings,” they said.
“The building is considered to preserve the setting of the Lisson Grove Conservation Area and provide a suitable termination point along Bell Street.”
They concluded: “Overall, the proposed building is considered acceptable in design and conservation terms and provides an exciting new building that positively contributes to the townscape.”
The putative first meeting between main Clash lyricist and vocalist Joe Strummer and his future band mates has often been told and recapped in the mythology of the punk-turned-rock group.
In a 2011 interview with BBC 6 Music, Clash founder member and lead guitarist Mick Jones described the fraught first interaction with his future musical collaborator at a time when he and Clash bass-player Paul Simonon were keen for Strummer to leave his then band, the 101ers, and join them.
“The first meeting we had was a sort of non-meeting. We saw him in the dole office and we were in the other queue, Paul and I and [Slits guitarist] Vivienne Albertine, in Lisson Grove dole office,” Jones said.
“He was looking at us and we were looking at him. We were looking at him because we’d just seen him play and we thought – oh wow, it’s Joe Strummer.
“He thought we were going to have a fight with him after he went out with the money. He said he thought he’d hit me first.”
Strummer died of a heart attack in 2002 at the age of 50, weeks before he, Jones, Simonon and Clash drummer Topper Headon were due to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Westminster councillors meet at 6.30pm tomorrow to consider AHMM’s Lisson Grove proposals.
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