Office and retail development adds new colonnade along narrow Ironmongers Lane
Stanton Williams has completed an office and retail building on a highly constrained site in the heart of the City of London.
Designed for the Mercers’ Company, the five-storey Whittington Building replaces two buildings behind Mercers’ Hall in the Guildhall conservation area.
It is named after Dick Whittington, the medieval merchant and philanthropist whose 600-year-old charity disburses money to the needy through the Mercers’ Company.
The 36,000 sq. ft scheme features retail space and its main lobby on the ground floor with upper floors providing office space and terraces with views over the City.
A new arcade links Frederick’s Place, formerly a cul de sac, with the narrow Ironmongers Lane, where a colonnade running the length of the building opens up the street for pedestrians and provides access to the scheme’s retail space.
The main reception area features timber panelled walls with terrazzo tiled floors and a glass installation by artist Catherine Lee entitled ‘A Cloth of Gold Bright Shoon’, which was commissioned by the Mercers’ Company through a Glaziers’ Company competition in 2022.
Stanton Williams director Alan Stanton said the practice had developed a design that is “rooted in its context and enhances the public’s experience of this historic area.”
Peter Lane, immediate past master of the Mercers’ Company, added: “The Whittington Building is an elegant and smart building of which we should all be very proud.
“Dick Whittington, the great Mercer philanthropist, would be delighted that this special scheme bears his name”.
The project team included main contractor Knight Harwood, quantity surveyor Avison Young, project manager Hanover Cube, structural engineer Elliot Wood and fire engineer OFR.
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