New Court EC4
New headquarters for Rothschild in the Bank Conservation Area required daring design and thoughtful construction methods
NM Rothschild & Sons have had their London headquarters on this St Swithin's Lane site for the past two centuries.
The redevelopment - Rothschild's third building on the site - will allow the bank to bring together all its London employees in one place, cater for its continuing expansion and meet the communications and technological demands of 21st Century investment banking.
The building will be the first designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas in this country. The current building's irregularly-shaped site footprint and inefficient layout will be replaced by 140,000 sq ft net of high quality office space, an archive and research room for the Rothschild Archive, a roof garden and a Sky pavilion offering panoramic views across the City.
The tall glass ground floor entrance area will open up pedestrian views to the famed Christopher Wren Church of St Stephen Walbrook and its churchyard - creating a transparency previously unheard of in this densely packed part of the City.
The proximity of neighbouring buildings has also affected the construction process. We have worked closely with neighbours to minimise the disruption to them, erecting an acoustic screen to shield them from noise, installing double glazing on neighbouring premises and carrying out as much work as possible out of hours.
