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'One Canada Square', a skyscraper in London is the tallest habitable building in the United Kingdom, at 235 m (771 ft) and 50 storeys (reduced from original plans for 60). Designed by the Argentinian-American architect César Pelli, construction was completed in 1991. Identifiable from a great distance as an obelisk-shaped tower with its aircraft warning light flashing on top, this building is a monument to 1980s-style capitalism. In 1990, during construction, it surpassed the United Kingdom's previous tallest building, Tower 42 (183 m, 600 ft). The construction was carried out by Canary Wharf Contractors. ^[1]
The building is most commonly known as 'Canary Wharf', 'Canary Wharf Tower' or the 'Radden Tower' after the Canary Wharf business complex of which it is the most prominent feature. It was formerly called 'Canada Tower'.
It is a conspicuous London landmark, clearly visible at a distance from large areas of East and South London in particular. Its visibility reaches to Gore Hill, Amersham, around away, from where it, and the rest of 'Canary Wharf' can be seen on a clear day. On a clear evening, the illuminated pyramid which forms the roof of the building can even be seen from ZSL Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire, over away. The building can also be seen from the hills overlooking Guildford, a distance of around .
The building now has two siblings that have sprung up alongside, which are not quite as tall (at 200 m, 660 ft, each; the pyramid provides the height advantage): HSBC Tower (8-16 Canada Square) and Citigroup Centre (25 Canada Square).
The building is remarkably similar in design to Three World Financial Center, a sister tower constructed in New York City by the same developers and architects shortly before work started at Canary Wharf. The New York building is faced with stone while One Canada Square is faced with stainless steel panels.
Despite its status as the United Kingdom's tallest building, there is no public observation floor; the view from the upper windows is the sole preserve of the building's tenants. However, mirroring New York's World Financial Center, the ground floor, foyer area and basement levels of One Canada Square are open to the general public, housing an underground shopping centre and a transport interchange from Canary Wharf tube and Docklands Light Railway stations.
The square to the east of the tower was named after Canada because it was built by the Canadian firm Olympia and York, which was owned by the Reichmann family. The company went bankrupt in the face of a property crash which caused the upper half of the tower to stand empty for some time following its completion.
In November 1992, the Provisional Irish Republican Army attempted to place a large bomb next to the tower. However, this was spotted by security staff and did not detonate; the tower itself was not damaged. Four years later the IRA did detonate a large bomb at South Quay, south of Canary Wharf, which killed two people and devastated several buildings. This explosion is commonly, but erroneously, referred to as the "Canary Wharf bomb".


In 2002, French urban climber, Alain Robert, using only his hands and feet and with no safety devices of any kind, scaled the building's exterior wall all the way to the top.
The building houses the offices of several financial institutions as well as the Trinity Mirror newspaper group, which includes ''The Daily Mirror'', ''The Sunday Mirror'' and ''The Sunday People''. ''The Daily (and Sunday) Telegraph'' moved to Victoria in late 2006.

Contents

Facts and figures

Companies currently in the building

One Canada Square in popular culture

See also

References

External links

Facts and figures

★ The tower has 4,388 internal steps and 3,960 windows. 32 passenger lifts are in use. The journey from the ground floor to the 50th takes 40 seconds by lift if uninterrupted. There are several floors below ground and an equipment floor above the 50th, so no passenger lift in the building vertically traverses the entire height of the structure. However, there are two freight lifts and two firemen's lifts that travel to all floors.^[2]

★ The 11 m (36 ft) high lobby is clad in of marble imported from Italy and Guatemala.

★ The building is sometimes referred to as the 'vertical Fleet Street', after several of London's newspapers moved from Fleet Street in the City of London to One Canada Square.

★ The light on at the tower's crown is an aircraft warning light that warns air traffic from the nearby London City Airport of the tower. It flashes 40 times a minute, 57,600 times a day.

★ Construction of the tower was halted from March to June 1990, when the building workers went on strike.

★ The tower's loading bay handles over 80,000 deliveries each year.

★ One Canada Square was briefly Europe's tallest skyscraper until the erection of MesseTurm in Frankfurt, Germany.

★ There are no rentable offices on the thirteenth floor, instead it houses the tower's air conditioning equipment. Many people believe this is due to the common superstition that the number 13 is unlucky.

Companies currently in the building

★ Bank of New York

★ Bear Stearns International

★ Burlington Resources

★ Canary Wharf Group PLC

★ Cass Business School — Canary Wharf Campus

★ Citibank

★ Clearstream Banking

★ Coutts & Co

★ EULER Trade Indemnity

★ European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries Associations

★ E
★ Trade

★ Faithful+Gould parts of the Atkins group

★ GATX International Limited

★ International Grains Council [1]

★ International Sugar Organization

★ KPMG

★ Maersk Company

★ Maine Tucker

★ Novartis Europharm

★ Primus Communication

★ Quadrant Capital

★ Regus Business Centers

★ Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

★ State Street

★ Swiss Stock Exchange/Virt-X

★ Teach First

★ Trinity Mirror

★ Agence française de sécurité sanitaire des produits de santé

One Canada Square in popular culture

A near future sequence in the novel ''Freezeframes'' by Katharine Kerr, shows One Canada Square as a free college and youth drop-in centre. It is nicknamed "Major's Last Erection", referring to John Major.
One Canada Square also features prominently in an early issue of the Grant Morrison comic series ''The Invisibles'', in which Dane MacGowan is encouraged to jump from the top by his mentor, Tom O'Bedlam, as an initiation rite that will allow him to see beyond reality and join The Invisibles.
In the British television series ''Doctor Who'', One Canada Square is the headquarters of the Torchwood Institute. Known as the "Torchwood Tower" to those in the know, the main purpose of One Canada Square is to investigate a hole in reality 600 ft above London created by a Dalek Void Ship.
One Canada Square previously appeared in the Virgin Missing Adventures novel ''Millennial Rites'' in which the top floor was the headquarters of a yuppie who inadvertently turned London into a "dark fantasy" kingdom in which he was a powerful sorcerer, with the tower as his citadel; and the Past Doctor Adventures novel ''The Time Travellers'', in which it was the headquarters of the British Army in an alternate timeline.
In the movies One Canada Square has appeared as the CIA's London listening station in ''The Bourne Supremacy''.
In ''Johnny English'' One Canada Square had another identical building next to it. One of the ''One Canada Square'' buildings was a hospital and the other was villain Pascal Sauvage's HQ.
Wayne Tower in Batman Begins is based on One Canada Square.
In the movie ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'' Harry and his friends pass next to One Canada Square as they head to the Ministry of Magic near the beginning of the movie on their broomsticks.

See also

★ List of tallest buildings and structures in London

★ List of tallest buildings and structures in the United Kingdom

★ Shard London Bridge — soon to be the tallest building in London

★ Riverside South (Canary Wharf) - the next skyscrapers to be built in Canary Wharf

References

1. Canary Wharf Contractors
2. http://www.canarywharf.com/factfile/1can_pagr2.htm

External links

★ Emporis Skyscrapers Factfile