The Guinness Brewery

Western Avenue, Park Royal, London
Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners, 1936

For over sixty years, the principal landmark and a thrilling sight on Western Avenue – the new arterial road laid out in west London in the 1920s – were three massive blocks of orange-brown brickwork which stood on an eminence just to the north of Park Royal. This was the Guinness Brewery, a venture initiated by the old Dublin firm of Arthur Guinness & Co. to supply the English with that dark liquid which is so much better for you than the products issuing from the several other smart new factories in the area: vacuum cleaners, car tyres, fire extinguishers, brushes and razor blades.

The Guinness Brewery at Park Royal opened in 1936. A complex of functional buildings on a landscaped site once used for the Royal Agricultural Show well supplied with transport links by road, rail and canal, it was designed by the consulting engineers, Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners. The principal buildings were framed in steel with the plant and machinery on braced steel framing while the interior of the Malt Store consisted of 230 concrete storage silos made of continuously poured concrete. But what transformed these blocks into a sublime and monumental architectural statement was the contribution of the consulting architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who was commissioned in 1933. Fresh from his triumph of humanising the great bulk of Battersea Power Station without denying its industrial character, Scott gave the buildings walls of 2_ inch Blockley’s Wellington facing bricks separated by _ inch ochre-tinted mortar joints, with interest given by bands of reconstructed stone and occasional touches of “jazz modern” fluting. He also organised the masses to create a composition of great power, making each of the principal blocks – Malt Store, Brewhouse and Storehouse, all connected by bridges – rise to a continuous height of 100 feet, despite the falling ground and despite each being a different width with a subtly different elevational treatment and fenestration. Here was order and discipline governed by Ruskinian principles rather than by an imposed Classical symmetry, and it was an approach to industrial design which contrasted favourably with the Art Deco “fancy factory” solution adopted by Wallis Gilbert & Partners at the nearby Hoover works.

As Scott’s role in the whole design has sometimes been belittled, as if his massing and detailing of the elevations was merely cosmetic, it is worth pointing out that when the brewery complex was comprehensively published in both the Architect and Building News and the Builder in 1947, his was the principal name attached to the project. And in his book, Alexander Gibb: The Story of an Engineer (London 1950), Godfrey Harrison wrote how “Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners were acting as civil engineering consultants to the Guinness company.[...] When the site was chosen the firm took full responsibility for construction, including even architecture in collaboration with the consulting architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, of the whole of that great conception which in time took shape as the Park Royal Brewery. Those vast walls - an expanse of almost unrelieved brick, perfectly proportioned - are remembered by all who have passed along Western Avenue.[...] This is the latest thing in brewing science, a milestone in factory architecture, a cathedral of industry.”

The Guinness Brewery is no longer quite the landmark it once was, as the view from the A40 is now obstructed by an uninspiring new administrative building erected by Diageo, the international conglomerate created in 1997 by the merger of Guinness with Grand Metropolitan. Worse, the brewery is to cease production this year – 2005 – and the original buildings to be demolished to create a business park being developed by the Park Royal Partnership Ltd. Although the brewery buildings were designed by one of the greatest of 20th century British architects, the creator of Liverpool Cathedral, numerous churches, Battersea and Bankside Power Stations, Waterloo Bridge, the House of Commons, Cambridge University Library and, not least, the old GPO red telephone box, they are not listed. After long negotiations, and against the advice of English Heritage, Diageo were eventually granted a Certificate of Immunity from listing in 1998 after arguing that statutory protection would impede their operations at the site and thus endanger local employment. In the event, however, Diageo is closing the brewery and is using the CoI – renewed until 2008 – to facilitate a mere asset-stripping speculative commercial development. This may be perfectly legal, but it is surely ethically unjustifiable. (At an earlier stage, Guinness promised to reconsider its opposition to listing if brewing ceased.)

On its web-site, Diageo insists that, “We act sensitively, with the highest standards of integrity and social responsibility… Everything we say, everything we do, and everything others say about us make our reputation.” This statement seems hard to reconcile with the use of the Certificate of Immunity for a purpose which was never intended, i.e. the demolition of the Scott buildings for a speculative redevelopment of the site, and with the firm’s refusal even to allow the Twentieth Century Society to inspect the buildings. Nor is its reputation enhanced by the absence of any serious attempt to investigate the creative re-use of the brewery buildings – as would be required if they were listed. At a time when there is growing appreciation of the importance of “embodied energy” in existing masonry structures, wilfully to destroy Scott’s magnificent walls of beautiful brickwork might well seem the height of social irresponsibility. Far from being a liability, the architectural quality of the 1930s brewery buildings could be an asset in an intelligent redevelopment of what is a very large site.

The Guinness Brewery ought to be listed, ought to be retained and ought to be converted, if possible, for new uses. That the Twentieth Century Society can do nothing through the statutory process or by legal methods to prevent their demolition is a scandal.

Gavin Stamp

Further reading
Godfrey Harrison: Alexander Gibb. The Story of an Engineer, London 1950
The Architect and Building News, 31 January 1936
The Architect and Building News, 30 May 1947
The Builder, 27 June 1947

Contacts
Brent Council, Conservation Team, Tel: 020 8937 1234

Image credits
Photographs Gavin Stamp