Bradford and Bingley Building Society HQ

Matthew Tempest, whose father, John, was a partner in Brunton's, has remarked upon this building as one of a trio of West Yorkshire building society headquarters – the others BDP’s Halifax HQ and Brunton’s High Point for the Bradford Permanent. Neither of Brunton’s pieces match up to the quality of the Halifax but all three were bold statements alien to their surrounding and signalling the confidence of the sector and of the societies’ roots in the northern towns where they chose to consolidate their businesses. This building appears to take its cues from North America, a bit of Falling Water combined with a planting scheme designed to cascade from its receding balconies and coniferous trees to soften its face to the town. The surviving mature landscape at the time these photographs were taken smacked of office park USA. The partner in charge of the job was Harry Moon and project architect was Ron Watson. The ziggurat-like form was reputedly their reference to the nearby five-rise locks (built 1774) on the Leeds-Liverpool canal. The 1970s scheme was an extension to an earlier three storey building in a regionalist Festival style, also by Brunton. The buff-coloured mass dominated the town and could be seen from miles around. Its concrete cladding used an aggregate that would match the yellow of York stone and was variously smooth and ribbed, the very lowest level was clad in real stone. Inside, it contained a computer suite, banking hall, reception, administrative offices and a senior executive suite with commanding views of the Aire Valley. The offices were organised according to the prevailing trend for bureaulandschaft planning – the office as landscape. Like High Point, the building was fully air conditioned with a heat recovery system. Accordingly, the glazing was a high spec Spectrafloat bronze system set in dark bronze anodized aluminium frames. Visitors were protected by a Corten clad entrance canopy and treated to relief wall sculptures by William Mitchell inside the banking hall (now in a lockup in Bradford). After a series of structural changes the business was subsumed within the Santander banking group and the building closed in 2009. Much like its counterparts it was both loved and loathed by locals and as it deteriorated this mostly erred towards the latter. Demolished in 2015, the site is now home to an Aldi supermarket.