Pussy galore

Camdenites of the 1920s were the first to witness Greater London House, or the Carreras cigarette factory as it was called then. Some liked it, some hated it. The only thing agreed upon was how unusual it was. A 165 m long building decked out with Egyptian imagery, including two 2·5 m tall black cats either side of the main entrance – the cats were all part of a cunning plan to market Carreras' brand of Black Cat cigarettes.

In the 1960s the front facade that had caused controversy 40 years before was stripped and covered up to give the office block a new look more akin to the times and the building was renamed Greater London House.

Thankfully, and not before time, in 1996 developer Media Office purchased Greater London House and instructed architect Finch Forman to restore the original Egyptian facade.

Three years on and the restoration is complete. The front facade has been restored to its original glory, complete with colourfully decorated columns, feline faces above the five storey banks of windows and the two rather proud black cats watching over you as you enter.

To give the building 24 hour appeal an external lighting scheme has been designed by Fulcrum Consulting. Richard Shennan, partner in charge of the project, took up the challenge of illuminating the building. The facade has many features that beg to be highlighted and so Shennan used a number of different light sources to achieve the desired effect.

Starting from the top, the striped cornice has been lit using a specially made Hi-Slim high output long-life linear tube system from Oldham Lighting. This continuous linear source sits on the bottom ledge of the cornice shining up on to the curved feature. The huge Egyptian columns are illuminated using spotlights from Sill Lighting. These are positioned on the balustrading to the rampway that sweeps left and right to ground level from the top of the main steps.

The main entrance, complete with its imposing pussies, is extremely grand. It is surrounded with a robust decorated concrete frame. Into the head of this frame have been installed four high powered Reggiani downlighters with Philips 150 W CDM-T lamps. These are complemented with recessed Concord Bega stainless steel wall light fittings which are flush mounted down either side of the frame. The cats are also lit using Concord Bega fittings which are installed in nearby planters as uplighters. Farebrother, the electrical contractor on the project installed all of the exterior lighting.

The design criteria, to provide simple clean lines with fittings incorporated into the facade detailing to accentuate the building rather than the light fittings, has been carried throughout the project. The ramps and stairway from the main entrance and the stairways down to the lower ground floor all feature recessed wall lights from Concord and Marlin.

Fulcrum also utilised the internal lighting as an external illumination feature. The staircases are lit to a high illuminance on the underside of each landing. These can be seen from outside and add to the external illumination in the overall scheme.

The £50 000 lighting design has made Greater London House a 24 hour feature of the Camden landscape. Camden's new feline inhabitants, along with the building they guard are, as Felix or Sylvester might say, purrrfect.