Between 1971 and 1976, 180 The Strand was erected where the Embankment, the Inns of Court and Covent Garden intersect above the Thames. The brutalist monolith, part of Sir Frederick Gibberd’s Arundel Great Court complex, was intended as testament to Britain’s dynamism in the face of rapidly changing times. Posterity didn’t favour that mandate: by the 1990s the complex was known as “Arundel not-so-great Court”; by 2009 Boris Johnson had signalled approval for 180’s demolition.
Instead, the building was acquired in 2012 by property developer and entrepreneur Mark Wadhwa. Fourteen years later, 180 The Strand is enjoying an almost absurdly cool second life. The largest Soho House in London occupies its top two floors; photography and recording studios, events spaces and a canteen fill the ground level. 180 Studios is home to the offices or ateliers of – among many others – Frieze, Jefferson Hack’s Dazed publishing group, fashion designer Harris Reed, make-up brand Charlotte Tilbury and Alex Eagle, the multi-hyphenate designer-stylist-curator who is also Wadhwa’s wife. It houses a health club and several restaurants – including, in the new 180 The Thames Building overlooking Temple Place, a café-deli called Corner Shop that’s emerged as a hobnobbing mecca for every aspiring somebody in town. There’s a groovy library, Reference Point. Today this city block is virtually its own precinct, where London’s creative and arts talents innovate at all hours. All that’s been missing is a place to sleep.
