Tower 42 is the second-tallest skyscraper in the City of London and the seventh tallest in Greater London. Its original name was the National Westminster Tower, having been built to house the National Westminster Bank's international division. Seen from above, the tower closely resembles the NatWest logo (three chevrons in a hexagonal arrangement).
The tower, designed by Richard Seifert and engineered by Pell Frischmann, is located at 25, Old Broad Street. It was built by John Mowlem & Co between 1971 and 1980, first occupied in 1980, and formally opened on 11 June 1981 by Queen Elizabeth II.
The construction cost was £72 million (approximately £230 million today). It is 183 metres (600 ft) high, which made it the tallest building in the United Kingdom until the topping out of One Canada Square at Canary Wharf in 1990. It held the status of tallest building in the City of London for 30 years, until it was surpassed by the Heron Tower in December 2009.
The building today is multi-tenanted and comprises Grade A office space and restaurant facilities. In 2011 it was bought by the South African businessman Nathan Kirsh for £282.5 million.
Read more about Tower 42: Ranking Among London High Rise Buildings, Previous Buildings On The Site, Trivia
Famous quotes containing the word tower:
“Culture is a sham if it is only a sort of Gothic front put on an iron building—like Tower Bridge—or a classical front put on a steel frame—like the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. Culture, if it is to be a real thing and a holy thing, must be the product of what we actually do for a living—not something added, like sugar on a pill.”
—Eric Gill (1882–1940)