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Built by Francis and Saunders, opened in 1885 and the most prestigious hotel in London at the time, the Metropole has had a sorry recent history. The Northumberland Avenue area went out of fashion in the 1930s and the oversized hotel, ostentatious to the extreme and an enormous building to maintain in the climate of declining tourism, was taken over by the UK Government. Its proximity to the newly completed Main Building in Whitehall ensured its future as a Ministry of Defence headquarters. Since then, the Metropole has been, at best - unsympathetically maintained, at worse - treated with contempt. Its bath stone exterior has been very poorly maintained; about 65% of its dressed stone having been replaced by cheap render leading to a patchy appearance. In addition, the building’s ostentatious interior - marble columns, chandeliers and richly ornamented carvings, was desecrated by layers of grey paint and interior doorways and features, many with classical adornments, blocked-up or covered over for ease of maintenance and the efficient use of space.
Niklaus Pevsner described the Metropole Building, in contrast with its neighbours and especially nearby Northumberland House, as outclassed and outmoded architecturally. His description of the building as an “ill-assorted collection of motifs” may be accurate to a certain extent but this ill-assortment consists of some interesting styles arranged over the facades illogically but with much symmetry. This very description of the Metropole re-affirms its position as a unique historical building in a unique street - it actually stands out against its more ‘beautiful’ neighbours and forms an essential part of the character of Northumberland Avenue. At street level its lengthy ground floor elevation gives the street an almost timeless look. Collectively these buildings form an Avenue of high facades. Tidy or not, they impress any pedestrian who cares to look up at the grandeur of the stone facades typical of the booming hotel industry in last quarter of the nineteenth century. The overbearing mansards, seemingly superfluous but sitting comfortably amongst the plethora of chimneys, create the top-heavy look to the Metropole.
If the Metropole were to disappear, a huge gap would appear that no modern building could even hope to fill. Indeed, no modern design could even begin to complement the neighbouring Northumberland House and the Playhouse Theatre opposite. A frown would surely appear on the face of Nelson who has overlooked this street from his column for over a century and a half, and would have witnessed the construction of the Metropole from start to finish.
Unfortunately the Metropole was never given listed building status and has been officially recognised by the Crown Estate and English Heritage as having no special architectural interest. For the past eighteen months, the Metropole has been abandoned by the government and, with boarded windows around the entire street level, it awaits its fate and prospective replacement by a building that appears insignificant when placed amongst the existing palatial structures on this skyline. The Crown Estate has commissioned a report (http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/metropole/) assessing the present structural condition of the Metropole and outlining proposals for redevelopment of the whole site.
Once again aspects of the much loved London skyline are about to be replaced by a dowdy, cheap and minimalist structure that makes a poor attempt at sympathy with its more architecturally interesting neighbours. The proposals fall far short of a replacement for such an iconic building as the Metropole and cannot replace the majesty of what was once one of London’s grandest hotels.
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