Friendly Bombs

A walk around the architecture, people and fabric of SLOUGH

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slough power signal box, slough, england, 1980s the john hillmer collection

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...the Horlicks factory in the background with its distinctive red-brick stack is still there!

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Corner of Petersfield Avenue and Albion Close

The Eastern end of Petersfield Avenue is home to a mini industrial area, much of which is now derelict, underused or empty, and the area has been rightly identified as a possible site for redevelopment. Further up the road more plans for high-density, multi-storey apartment cubes have been approved, hoping to cash in on the convenience of the upcoming Crossrail transport links-- let’s hope that whatever takes shape here won’t consist of more overpriced commuter-bait.

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The Grey: Industrial Slough in Wintertime.

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Van Hire

Sunnier times along the Bath Road, a highway of industry and business for much of its length through the town. Moving further West we leave the grandiose steel and glass palaces of the Trading Estate and return to the familiar, down-to-earth world of greasy spoons, car washes, petrol stations and motor rentals While the multinational giants loom at the side of the Estate with recognisable brand names and corporate logos, these smaller businesses exist in the periphery providing the less glamorous but no less important daily services, much of it motor-related.

It is in these places that you find the heart and soul of a town, mostly because they tend to be staffed by people who actually live in town; one thing you notice about working for the large companies in the Trading Estate is how few people who work there actually live in Slough, the majority of them living well outside the town and commuting in, some from counties away, and even, in the case of one person I worked with, making a weekly commute from France(!).

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Above: Segro’s current headquarters continue the dingy colour scheme and tired arrangement of vertical rectangles that seems to be the default setting for every office building now; visually neat but unremarkable seems to be the motto. The little stone bench in the bottom right is a cute addition, although quite why anyone would want to sit and face the traffic on the busy Bath Road is anyone’s guess.

Slough vs Brexit?

Now, it’s time to address the rampaging gorilla in the room: Brexit. More specifically, how will Britain leaving the EU affect the Trading Estate in particular, and Slough in general?

Ever since its earliest days, the Slough Trading Estate has hosted international companies (“Foreign companies”, if we are to use the unsubtle rhetoric of Brexit). By the end of the 1920s American names like Gillette were rubbing shoulders with continentals like Citroen; these days we have Black & Decker (American), the Anglo-Dutch company Reckitt-Benckiser (makers of household brands such as Dettol, Scholl, Harpic and Nurofen), 1&1 Internet (German), O2 (Spanish-owned), Electrolux (Swedish), Blackberry (Canadian), Fiat and Ferrari (Italian) and scores more, while nearby are multinationals like Danish Lego, American Burger King and British multinationals like GlaxoSmithKline.

The immediate effect of Brexit is that some of these companies may wonder if it’s still worth being here. Freedom of movement and inclusion in the Eurozone is what makes Slough viable for many of these companies, who consequently have large numbers of international staff (“Immigrants”, as the Brexiteers would say) working in them; they are multinationals that maintain a network of operations that span the globe and have a fluid, transient staff that reflects this. European companies in particular will wonder if it’s not better to head back to the continent (or even to Ireland as an English-speaking alternative) and simply import the odd Brit here and there as needs require.

Above: Burger King offices along the Bath Road, Slough. Of course, you could be forgiven for thinking that Westminster was the home of the whopper, so many are told there.

The dangers of European companies shipping out is obvious; what is less so is the possibility of companies from the rest of the world and particularly the United States having second thoughts. Since the early days of the Trading Estate American companies have used Slough as a way into Europe: Johnson & Johnson, Gillette, Mars and others have all used Slough as a production point for goods destined for European consumption-- Friendly-Bombs once holidayed in Greece and found a shop selling Mars bars stamped as ‘Made in Slough’-- but if Brexit makes it difficult for Britain to access the EU market, why bother with the middleman? Plenty of business parks in Germany.

The Trading estate’s strength has always been the diversity of its customers-- companies from all sectors and industries, all corners of the globe, all helping to absorb whatever industrial shock should occur. If the auto companies had to pull out, there were still the chemical and pharma companies, if they left then there were the tech giants, and the consumer brands, and so on. If British and European companies were struggling, there were Asian and American ones waiting in the wings. But this guaranteed supply of industrial tenants was always predicated in part on Britain’s position in Europe-- geographically in the years before she joined the common market, and economically thereafter-- a position that seemed unshakeable until the recent vote.

Ironically, despite such a reliance on foreign companies, Slough was actually one of the few Labour-controlled boroughs to actually vote for Brexit. Why take long-term economic security seriously when you can stick it to the many immigrants that now call Slough home? This baffling result was surely a last middle-finger from a resentful core of people who have never gotten over the diversity of the town, never accepted the spectrum of immigrants that now characterise Slough, who believe the fictions of immigrants living the life of kings on the taxpayer's purse or blame them unduly for crime or unemployment, or who were simply looking for a way to upset the establishment; either way, nary a thought was given to what could actually happen to the town as a result of the country no longer being in the EU.

So what will happen? Maybe nothing will change. Maybe it will become an unviable wasteland. Maybe a changing of the guard, with some familiar faces disappearing from the estate, followed by a probable period of uncertainty… and then in all likelihood a new crop of clients, perhaps from sectors and lands not yet represented on the estate, or maybe even a new generation of British companies. If no-one’s panicking, it’s because nobody has a bloody clue what’s going on, now or in the shape-shifting future, so for now Slough plods on as it always has done.

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Where did you get the build date for 260 Bath Road? I was the construction Project Manager and can confirm it was built between 1990 and 1992 and not the 1960's. interestingly during the build SE or SEGRO as they later became had substantial interest from a major paint company for a new hq building but needed an associated space. Thus 258 Bath Road was added to our contract using an identical design concept and specialist contractors but different final detailing. TRC

Hiya... I got that 1960s date from this planning application, but it looks like that's way off! Either it's a mistake on the document or it's describing a different building (or maybe I'm just being a bit thick!). Either way, thanks for the heads-up, I'll update the post... last time I trust a planning application!

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Another shot of the eccentrically-angled Black and Decker offices on the Bath Road (built around 1990)

Older (read anything built before 1995) corporate buildings like this are becoming rare-- commerce demands the newly-built, the up-to-date, the current model, to have yesterday’s building is to seem tired, untrendy and financially vulnerable. Like a vain fashionista who won’t be caught dead in last season’s clothes the companies that occupy corporate palaces are desperate to not look dated, and demand always newer buildings-- newer, bigger, glassier, but not necessarily better, so long as it looks bold and expensive.

But, as Jane Jacobs put it: “Newness, and its superficial gloss of well-being, is a very-perishable commodity”. Corporate offices are continually being torn down to build new, gleaming buildings that impress by the shock of their sudden appearance and by the ruthlessness of their introduction to the site; but these too will be torn down in turn tomorrow, to make way for new buildings that will impress new customers. Many won’t be missed, however some, like the former Segro offices that sadly bit the dust last year, were important icons and representatives of unique strands of modern British architecture that the world is duller without. But the world of commerce and industry does not venerate its ancestors or cherish its history; instead, its sons depose their fathers at the first sign of weakness until all that is left is a fluid landscape defined purely by its ethos rather than by any lasting appearance.

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Black & Decker Offices, Bath Road

Oh boy, the 80s are strong with this multi-levelled corporate palace of brick, bronzed glass and mirrors. It was actually built around 1990 but could easily pass for something ten or fifteen years older. A geometric orgy of terrace levels, reflecting towers, symmetrical wings, stepped pilasters and two squared arches is constructed from a combination of bronzed glass, metal window frames, mirrored panes, stone steps, red brick and slate. It’s a dozen buildings merged into one. It’s eccentric, iconic, striking, impressing and amusing, silly yet enviable; it is perhaps the most opulently-imagined of the commercial palaces that line this stretch of the Bath Road at the edge of the Trading Estate, housing offices and headquarters and displaying wealth, power, ability and status. And just when the commercial-imperial mien of the palace can’t get any better, it’s topped by a glass pyramid.

Its playful conceit feels like the folly of a bored Mughal prince, given a heavy dose of 80s corporate pomp; it belongs in the opening credits of Dallas. But it’s a Faberge egg compared to the head-bashingly dull and predictable glass cuboids of office blocks that are increasingly replacing older, more imaginative stock (like this sadly-now-departed entry). Even if you hate its cluttered design and bombastic statement you have to admire the kitschy creativity and sheer balls of the design.

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when were the houses in alpha street south built

Good question! While none of the old Victorian houses still standing have legible date plaques we can date them roughly to the late 1830's and early 1840s at the earliest. A description of Slough in around 1830 (from a booklet printed in 1896) says that at that time Alpha Street didn't exist at all, meaning that all the buildings will date from when the road was first laid just after the railways arrived in 1838, bringing Slough's first expansion and a need for new streets.

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Former ‘Slough States’ administration building at the Slough Trading Estate Slough, Berkshire, England, UK; 1974 (demolished, 2015)

Geoffrey Salmon, Speed Associates (photographs by Acourt; Henk Snoek)

see map | more information 1, 2

via “Informes de la Construcción: Volume 30, 290" (1977)

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Some nice shots of the construction of the old Segro headquarters on the Bath Road... they eerily echo pictures of its recent demolition. 

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216 Bath Road, from the front

Another view of this distinctive office building. A web of blue frames extends across the entrance, which is reflected back onto itself by the mirrored wings on either side; their distinct vividness guarantees colour even when the weather is not cooperating and the mirrored windows can only reflect dull overcast skies. The grid structure of the glass is broken up with the simple method of adding a double frame to every fourth window on three of the rows. The symmetry here is pleasing, partly because it is emphasized by the change in depth of the view towards the entrance and also because it has been continued in the green lawn patches, brick pillars and white birch saplings in the foreground. The entrance itself is understated and, with its short blue columns, commendably commits to the colour scheme of the building-- if you’re going to do something, do it all the way. Meanwhile, car parking has been rightly banished to the back of the building leaving the front purely for show along the busy Bath Road; these aren’t functional business buildings, they are the palaces of modern industry, and show off as such.

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Distinctive blue window frames immediately make this 80s office building stand out-- vibrant colour is one of the key factors missing from a lot of modern light industrial architecture (and one that is largely missing from British architecture in general). By splitting the window faces on the wings of this building into bays the designers avoid having a surfeit of glass and add a degree of texture and depth to the design (no hostile, uniform walls of material here) while the red brick is a nice nod back to the factories of yore (such as this old beauty). By not compromising or chickening out on the blue-frame pattern (even the fire exit door is outlined in blue) the design provides a consistent identity that makes it one of the Trading Estate's more memorable industrial palaces.

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Office building at 260 Bath Road

This office building was built in the early 1990s (thanks to a reader for this date!) and has a slightly American feel about it, with that rounded portico-- a hint of Monticello, a bit of the White House, perhaps?

Meanwhile the bronzed windows are the calling-card of 20th century office buildings (coupled here with the usual light stone to give a soft contrast). Dark and impenetrable, the tinted panes represent the old, 20th century attitude of the corporate entity towards the man in the street, who is not worthy to be party to the secret, elite goings-on inside; you are not meant to be able to see what goes on in there, amongst the higher echelons of industry. Contrast that with today’s mantra of clear glass, glass and more glass, floor-to-ceiling windows that allow you to see everything and everyone inside, all to portray the openness and corporate responsibility of the supposedly progressive companies inside; but merely having transparent walls is no guarantor of having a transparent business.

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Another shot of the giant canopy on one of the office buildings along the Bath Road, a feature that comes across as baffling and superfluous. The height and scale is impressive, but there is something very mundane and uninspired about this building that leaves it struggling to impress.

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Office Building, 270 Bath Road

Following from the last post which showed the curiously challenging Brutalist building that housed the Slough Estates Group, we now see a building that represents the current wave of office non-design: a cliff-face of glass in a giant-scale homage to the classic (read mundane) style of 20th century British industrial offices. Rows of continuous floor-to-ceiling glass windows are separated by monochrome grey panels in a style that goes back to at least the fifties (here’s an example) and whose persistent presence in office design in this day and age is presumably because of its likeness to an Excel spreadsheet page.

The entrance is covered by a giant canopy supported by two tall, lamppost-like struts in a structure that simply uses sheer scale and magnitude to impress rather than any aesthetic quality. It’s even questionable whether it actually successfully functions as a canopy, being so high that rain coming in at any angle save from the building-side would still reach close to the building’s actual entrance.

Friendly-Bombs struggled on numerous occasions to get a decent shot of this building, and this picture shows why: the surfeit of glass, coupled with the default setting of exciting shades of grey, grey and more grey for the rest simply doesn’t come across well in the usual British climate. The gloom of the clouds is reflected and somehow emphasized by the glazing of the building, and with many of the windows blocked by screens or blinds one wonders why offices insist on having so much clearly unwarranted glass in the first place.

Gloomy, grey, mundane, unoriginal, boring? Why it’s Slough all over!

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Another shot of the former SEGRO offices (1975) down the Bath Road in Slough shortly before its demolition.

The building served as a headquarters for the company that controls the whole Trading Estate and was thus designed to be a class apart, drawing from the pagan rather than the classical or Christian; cathedrals are for choral singing and bake sales, ancient Brutalist temples are for genuflection and human sacrifice. The dark, impenetrable bronzed window space suggests the depths of a cave or the shadows beneath the dolmens of a megalithic structure, continuing the primal, primitive feeling evoked by Brutalism in general and the layered, prehistoric structure of this building in particular.

Sadly it is no more. Taken during its demolition, the above shot gives a handy cross-section of the building, dispelling the myth that Brutalist buildings were all composed of solid concrete metres thick. Here we see that the outer structure is actually a shell just a few inches thick wrapped around the frame of the building, which is itself a lattice of steel-reinforced concrete slabs. Humble brickwork then makes up some of the interior walls.

A barely forty-year lifespan actually wasn’t bad for a modern commercial building-- their usual lifespan is usually barely half that. Commerce hates nostalgia, and baulks at the idea of conservation-- it’s all about tomorrow’s fashions, tomorrow’s glamour, associating business prominence and commercial capability with ever newer designs, concepts and chic. In the world of digital platforms, app development and smart space, Brutalism went out with the brick telephone and the milk float; a loss, in this new world of the intangible, the disposable and the indifferently-designed.

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The Mayan temple meets the monolith: Former Segro Offices, Bath Rd (completed 1975, demolished 2014)

This building was commissioned to serve as the headquarters of Slough Estates, the company that operates the Trading Estate. It was one of Slough’s most distinctive buildings, and certainly the best example of the Brutalist style in the area. Completed in 1975, it arranged pre-formed concrete panelling and bronzed glass in an inverted ziggurat, with an unassuming, almost hidden entrance and an identical plan on all four aspects.

Uncompromising, immovable and unyielding, the daintiness of the early 20th century and the precise fussiness of Modernism well and truly buried under a thousand tonnes of blunt primitivism. There is no ornament, because here form is ornament-- the building can only be assessed as a whole structure rather than by dwelling on any particular feature. Roof? Unimportant. Entrance? Unimportant. Surface? Unadorned. Orientation? Irrelevant. Impact? Instant and slightly scary, as Brutalism should be.