This is the former Camden Town Hall Annex designed by Camden’s in-house architects and completed in 1974. It is located opposite St Pancras and Kings Cross stations.
It was feared that when Camden council moved out of these premises back in 2012 that the building would be demolished. As it turned out the majority of this Brutalist structure was retained and renovated with new floors added to the roof – (replacing a large block concrete roofing structure that contained the plant equipment and the buildings east-west stair core was also removed.
The work was designed by a company called Orms with the support of English Heritage which welcomed the reuse of the annex on the grounds of its ‘considerable design merit’, and accepted that the height extension was “integral for making the design fit for purpose”.
The work was completed and the 266 room opened in 2019.
So – glass half full or half empty? It has to be better that the majority of the building was retained even if the cost was the new top.
