Telephone Exchange

This beautifully brutal example of a telephone exchange was designed by T.H. Anson for the Ministry of Works. Sitting close to the library and council offices forming something of a twentieth century civic cluster, it was an extension to a 1930s neo-Georgian building. This type of stylistic clash was not uncommon in exchange buildings as they grew to accommodate new equipment. Seen on a sunny day, as the photographs here show, it carries a crystalline quality, albeit aided by its white over-painting of the original concrete construction. An assembly of precast modules with generously glazed stairwells and upper floor make it quite a jazzy, if impenetrable, set piece that is clearly riffing on William Whitfield's work.