Selfridges, Oxford Street
| Selfridges | |
|---|---|
Oxford Street frontage
|
|
| General information | |
| Status | Open, in use |
| Type | Department store |
| Architectural style | Beaux-Arts with Ionic columns |
| Address | Oxford Street |
| Town or city | London, W1 |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°30′51.04″N 0°9′9.46″W / 51.5141778°N 0.1526278°WCoordinates: 51°30′51.04″N 0°9′9.46″W / 51.5141778°N 0.1526278°W |
| Current tenants | Selfridges |
| Opened | 15 March 1909 |
| Cost | £400,000 |
| Client | Harry Gordon Selfridge |
| Owner | Galen Weston and family |
| Technical details | |
| Structural system | Steel frame |
| Floor count | 9 (1xRoof terrace; 5xcustomer above ground; 1xcustomer basement; 2xbasement storage) |
| Floor area | 540,000 square feet (50,000 m2) of selling space |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Daniel Burnham |
| Structural engineer | Sven Bylander |
| Other designers | Francis Swales, R. Frank Atkinson, Thomas Smith Tait, Gilbert Bayes |
| Designations | Grade II Listed |
Selfridges is a Grade II listed retail premises on Oxford Street in London. It was designed by Daniel Burnham for Harry Gordon Selfridge, and opened in 1909. Still the headquarters of Selfridge & Co. department stores, with 540,000 square feet (50,000 m2) of selling space, the store is the second largest retail premises in the UK, half as big as the biggest department store in Europe, Harrods. It was named the world's best department store in 2010, and again in 2012.
In 1906, Harry Gordon Selfridge travelled to England on holiday with his wife, Rose. Unimpressed with the quality of existing British retailers, he noticed that the large stores in London had not adopted the latest selling ideas that were being used in the United States.
Selfridge decided to invest £400,000 in building his own department store in what was then the unfashionable western end of Oxford Street, by slowly buying up a series of Georgian architecture buildings which were on the desired block defined by the surrounding four streets: Somerset, Wigmore, Orchard and Duke.
The building was designed by American architect Daniel Burnham, who was respected for his department store designs. He created Marshall Field's, Chicago, Filene's in Boston, Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, and Gimbels and Wanamaker's in New York City. The building was an early example in the UK of the use of a steel frame, five stories high with three basement levels and a roof terrace, originally laid out to accommodate 100 departments.
American-trained Swedish structural engineer Sven Bylander was engaged to design the steel frame structure. As the building was one of the early examples of steel frame in the UK, Bylander had to first agree appropriate building regulations with the London County Council, requiring amendments to the London Building Act 1844. Using as a basis the regulations which covered the similarly-designed London docklands warehouses, Bylander then agreed changes which enabled greater spans within lesser beam dimensions due to the use of steel over stone. Bylander designed the entire supporting structure which was approved by the LCC in 1907, with a steel frame based on blue brick pile foundations, supporting a steel frame which holds all of the internal walls and the concrete floors. Bylander designed in additional supported internal walls, as LCC would not approve store areas above 450,000 cubic foot (13,000 m3) due to the then approved fire safety regulations, many of which were removed 20 years later in light of new legislation. Bylander submitted a 13-page fully illustrated account of the design of the building to Concrete and Constructional Engineering, which was published in 1909. The work of Burnham and Bylander with LCC led to the passing of the LCC (General Powers) Act 1909, also called the Steel Frame Act, which gave the council the power to regulate the construction of reinforced concrete structures.
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