From the Hansard archives: Redeveloping the foreign office

Approximate read time: 10 minutes

Earlier this year a group of former diplomats and officials published a pamphlet containing recommendations for UK foreign policy.^[1] One of its recommendations concerned the physical environment in which UK foreign policy is conducted. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office building on King Charles Street,^[2] the authors suggested, needed “modernising […] with fewer colonial era pictures on the walls”, arguing that “might help create a more open working culture and send a clear signal about Britain’s future”.^[3]

This is not the first time the FCDO’s home has had its suitability as a workplace questioned. As historian Anthony Seldon noted, the building was “mired in controversy” from the start.^[4] The ceilings were too high, the rooms too dark and airless, and noxious smells and coal fumes filled the rooms and corridors. Seldon quotes Douglas Hurd, who worked there as a trainee diplomat in the 1950s, and later became a foreign secretary in the 1980s and a life peer in 1997, who said: “There was a wide consensus that the building should be pulled down”.

1. “Inadequate, inefficient and, indeed, uneconomic”

In the 1960s, the foreign office’s demolishment was a realistic prospect. This prompted questions in Parliament over its future. In December 1963, Lord Hawke asked the government whether it would be “refraining from demolishing and rebuilding the foreign office in present circumstances”.^[5] Earl Jellicoe, the first lord of the admiralty, responded for the government. He said it was essential that the department “should be suitably and adequately accommodated in a building which enables them efficiently to discharge their responsibilities”. He added: “It will necessarily be some years before work can be started on a new building”. Asked about the case for the new building retaining its existing frontage, Lord Jellicoe answered by saying: “To modernise the building while preserving the existing facades would be inadequate, inefficient and, indeed, uneconomic”.^[6]

Lord Bossom, an architect known for his skyscrapers in America, asked the government further questions about the facades in March 1964. On 5 March, Lord Bossom asked about their retention and whether redeveloping the interiors was possible.^[7] Earl Jellicoe responded that the government had “reached the conclusion that a scheme of interior reconstruction could provide neither the amount nor the standard of accommodation needed”. The facades also concerned Lord Killearn, a former diplomat. He called for “deeper consideration” saying it was a “great pity that one of the classic views of London, of a really worthy building, should be lightly cast aside”.^[8] Lord Jellicoe agreed it “is a very fine building” but “he knows as well as I know how intolerable it is inside for a great many people who work there”. Later that month, Lord Bossom asked the government again about the plans.^[9] He said the facade was “an exceptional example of Victorian architecture”. He asked whether the government had considered moving some foreign office staff out to make room or swapping its departmental occupancy with a smaller government department. Lord Carrington, then leader of the House, replied that a previous scheme for the interiors had been abandoned because it did not represent value for money. He said: “It would result in a far more expensive and far less efficient scheme than replacing the present building”.^[10]

2. Whitehall redevelopment

In spring 1964, the government appointed Sir Leslie Martin as a consultant on plans to develop the entire Whitehall area, including the foreign office.^[11] Professor Colin Buchanan was appointed the next month tasked with the traffic considerations. In June 1964, Lord Bossom asked again whether a “fresh design” for the foreign office that retained the existing façade would be sought through open competition.^[12] For the government, Earl Jellicoe repeated that it had been concluded that “a scheme on the lines proposed […] would prevent the satisfactory development of the site and make it impossible to erect a functionally efficient, adequate or well-designed modern building”.^[13]

In July 1965, Sir Leslie’s report was published, alongside Professor Buchanan’s report on traffic.^[14] The main report proposed an extensive scheme for the area from the River Thames to St James’ Park showing a “continuous repeating grid of ziggurat-sectioned buildings”.^[15] Although Labour had replaced the Conservatives in government the previous autumn, support for the foreign office plans remained. In a ministerial statement repeated in the Lords, the government said it “recognise[d] the need to develop the remainder of the site for government offices”.^[16] It said this was “a necessary part of the redevelopment of the foreign office site. Planning will be set in hand as soon as possible”. The statement added: “In general, government building in Whitehall will be planned and accord with the general principles set out by Sir Leslie Martin”. In November 1965, a further statement said foreign office redevelopment would be part of the scheme’s first stage.^[17] In response to the statement, Conservative peer Lord Mancroft asked whether it had “definitely [been] decided that the foreign office is to be pulled down; and have those of us who are opposed to the destruction of this particularly beautiful building now no further course of action open to us?”.^[18] In reply, Lord Mitchison said the previous administration had decided the foreign office “should be pulled down, and I have not announced, either to-day or previously, any change from that decision”.^[19]

3. “A vast ziggurat”

In December 1965, Earl Jellicoe, now on the opposition benches, opened a debate on Sir Leslie’s report.^[20] He thought “the most important and most debatable single proposal” in the report was “the plan to build a vast ziggurat of […] government offices on the sites now occupied by [George Gilbert] Scott’s Palmerstonian foreign office and the Edwardian building next door”.^[21] He said he still hoped the government would “at least pause before destroying one of the loveliest urban landscapes in the world, the view from St James’s Park towards the north-west facade of the foreign office building”. For the government, Lord Mitchison reminded the House about the decade-long political consensus about the need for a new foreign office. He said: “It is therefore quite definite that the foreign office is coming down, facade and all”.^[22] Several peers remained hostile to the plans. For example, Lord Faringdon, a Labour peer, noted: “On this question one finds considerable opposition. I know nobody who views the destruction of the foreign office with equanimity”.^[23] Lord Ilford, from the Conservative benches, regretted the “ruthless fashion in which we are prepared to sweep away existing buildings of architectural and historic interest”.^[24] He thought “Scott’s foreign office is to be swept away with hardly an apology or a tear of regret”. Not all contributors to the debate thought the same. Crossbencher Lord Caccia, a recently retired diplomat, supported the foreign office’s redevelopment. He told the House that “since I joined the foreign office in 1929, the interior of the building in which that department is working has become more and more shabby and disreputable”.^[25] Lord Sherfield, a crossbencher and former ambassador to the United States, agreed. He said: “It has always seemed to me that those who oppose the demolition of the present foreign office building can never have worked in it”.^[26] In his contribution, Lord Taylor, a Labour peer, was less than complimentary about the interiors. He thought “the grand staircase of the foreign office, with murals by the late Sir Sigismund Goetze, done in 1920, are remarkable”.^[27] But added: “I have never seen anything more grotesque or horrible in my life. The only treatment for them is a spray gun”. He added: “If this is what people, ambassadors and the like, think Britain is like when they get here, it is a bad outlook”.

4. Restoration not demolition

In 1968, the government updated the House on the Whitehall redevelopment plans. In that statement, it confirmed that “no plans or programme have yet been made for the future of the foreign office site”.^[28] The next year Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, a government whip, told peers that, while plans for a new parliamentary building and a new government office building were progressing, “redevelopment of the foreign office site will be considered at a later stage”.^[29]

With that the prospect of the foreign office being demolished ended. Following a general election in 1970 and a change of government, the Heath government announced that the building would be restored rather than demolished.^[30] According to Anthony Seldon, the “cost was given as a prime reason, although the climate had also moved away from destroying old buildings”.^[31]

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Cover image by Colin on Wikimedia Commons.