BT Hanley Tower

You’re nobody ’til somebody loves you,
You’re nobody ’til somebody cares.
You may be king, you may possess the world and it’s gold,
But gold won’t bring you happiness when you’re growing old.

Hanley GSC represents a major telecommunication facility for BT and is positioned within the City boundaries of Stoke-on-Trent, on a very congested site.

The building fabric was starting to degrade and in need of structural refurbishment.

Works comprised of cleaning down the externals by high pressure water jetting, carrying out concrete repairs, applying an anti-carbonation coating, anti-corrosion treatments, painting the windows and applying sealants to windows and various joints around the structure.

All work was carried out whilst the exchange was fully manned and operational.

Works were carried outover a 26 week period, utilising mast climbers around the structure, with a limited amount of scaffolding on the low level structures.

Contract value £580,000

Makers.

Derided locally as an eyesore, currently the tallest building in town following the demolition of Unity House.

It has an antecedent as an immediate neighbour.

Former telephone exchange and offices – circa 1900.

Brick and terracotta with plain tiled roof. Eclectic style, with main block of three storeys, and three 3 narrow bays with flanking towers, all vertical spaces elongated.

The Potteries

Let’s take a look at the young upstart.

BT Building – Warrington

Wilson Patten street Warrington Cheshire WA1

A forgotten part of Warrington town centre could be turned into plush new affordable flats.

Developers are looking to put an eight-storey apartment block off Wilson Patten Street close to the former BT telephone exchange building – described in the planning application as an:

ugly concrete monolith

It would be home to a mix of forty one, two and three bed flats on the spare land which is currently used as a car park.

Warrington Guardian

Typically the architecture of Twentieth Century infrastructure is reviled and ridiculed – simply swept away by contemporary, anonymous design and construction.

At least in this instance the developers intend to retain the ugly concrete monolith.

For me it is an essay in confident construction and decoration, the marriage of 1955’s brick utilitarianism, with a later concrete structure.

Poised on massive grey piloti, rising elegantly above the town.

Adorned with a simple articulation of surface.