Bush House

Bush House is an office and retail building between Aldwych and beach in London, UK. It was built in 1923 by the New York architect Helmle and Corbett in several phases. From 1940 it housed in four out of five wings the BBC World Service and the New Media department of BBCi.

History

The American Businessman Irving T. Bush - a relationship with the U.S. President is not known - received the 1919 award for its use of the building design, which was originally designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett as a new commercial center. The building was made ​​of Portland stone, a form of limestone, erected.

The various wings of the building were built over a period of 13 years and opened:

The official opening was performed by Lord Balfour on July 4, 1925. It included the unveiling of two by the American artist Malvina Hoffman created statues. In 1929, Bush House was regarded as " the most expensive building in the world ". The construction costs were actually astronomically high with 10 million dollars for that time.

After an aerial mine the Broadcasting House, the BBC had damaged on December 8, 1940 moved the European Foreign Service of the BBC in the south-east wing, the rest of the BBC World Service followed in 1958.

The BBC was never the owner of the building. The lease of the BBC with Kato Kagaku, the current Japanese owner company expires in November 2012.

As part of its modernization program of the parent company in Portland Place in central London's Marylebone district of the BBC admitted gradually most of the building. The first broadcast of the World Service from the new broadcasting center was produced on 11 March 2012. It was a program of the Burmese service with listener participation, at the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi took part as a guest. The last message was broadcast from Bush House (11 clock GMT) sent 12 July 2012 by 12 clock to local time. The newscaster was Iain Purdon.