One Canada Square
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One Canada Square
The tallest building in England and the United Kingdom
Information
Location	London, England
Coordinates	51°50′55″N, 0°01′97″ECoordinates: 51°50′55″N, 0°01′97″E
Status	Complete
Constructed	1988-1991[1][2][3]
Use	Commercial[4]
Height
Antenna/Spire	244 metres (800 ft) [5] above sea level, or 235.1 metres (771 ft)[6] above ground level. (See height section for other quoted heights).
Technical details
Floor count	50[4]
Floor area	115,000 m2 (1,238,000 sq ft)[7]
Elevator count	32 + 2 freight + 2 firemen[4]
Companies
Architect	César Pelli & Associates[7][8][9][10] Adamson Associates[11][8][10] Frederick Gibberd Coombes & Partners[8][12][10]
Structural Engineer	MS Yolles & Partners[8] Waterman Partnership[13][8]
Contractor	Sir Robert McAlpine [10] Ellis Don[10] Lehrer McGovern[10] Bovis Olympia & York + approximately 40 sub-contractors
Developer	Olympia & York[14][2]
Owner	Canary Wharf Group plc (current majority shareholder is Songbird Estates plc[15])
Management	Canary Wharf Group plc

One Canada Square (also known as the Canary Wharf Tower) is a skyscraper in Canary Wharf, London. It is the tallest building in the United Kingdom at 800 ft (240 m) above sea level, or 771 ft (235 m) above ground level^[5][6] (see height section for other quoted heights). It is the sixth tallest building in the European Union.

A London landmark

One Canada Square is a conspicuous London landmark, clearly visible at a distance from large areas of East and South London in particular.

The tower can be seen approximately 50 km (30 miles) away from the following observations: Its visibility reaches to Gore Hill, Amersham, around 28 miles (45 km) away, from where it, and the rest of Canary Wharf can be seen on a clear day. It can also be seen from the higher parts of the Lea Valley in southern Hertfordshire and Essex; this is particularly apparent when travelling towards London on the M11 motorway or A10 road. 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 32 miles (51 km) away. The building can also be seen from the hills overlooking Guildford, a distance of around 31 miles (50 km).

A view of the building from the ground

History and design

The plans and design

Olympia & York was the original developers for One Canada Square. They chose several architects whom were Cesar Pelli & Associates, Adamson Associates, and Frederick Gibberd Coombes & Partners^[10][8]. After much design consultation, the final design was reached in 1988.

Construction

Construction on the tower began in 1988^[10]. The tower was topped out on 1990-11-08 when the top piece of the pyramid roof was put in place by crane. In August 1991, One Canada Square was completed^[10] and open for business.

Post-completion

In May 1992, the original developers, Olympia & York, went into bankruptcy administration. Ownership of the tower has changed several times ever since.

Building technical details

Building name

The official name given to the building is 'One Canada Square'^[4]. However it is widely known to Londoners as the 'Canary Wharf Tower'.

Royal Mail / The Post Office (as well as some building tenants and other sources) refers to the building as '1 Canada Square'^[16][17].

The building may have been 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^[18].

Building height

The height of One Canada Square has been stated differently from many sources. The official source, Canary Wharf Group, state that the building is 800 feet (244 metres)^[5] This is in close agreement with aviation charts issued by the Civil Aviation Authority which show it as 799 feet above ground level, or 806 feet above sea level. Aviation maps show the tallest extreme of the building, irrespective of whether this is an antenna, flagpole, sign or occupied floor.

Pyramid roof

The pyramid roof at night

Canary Wharf: Aircraft warning lights

Notable facts about the pyramid

• The pyramid roof lights up in the evenings and can be seen 20 miles away^[19].
• 40 metres high^[20]
• 30 metres square at the base^[20]
• made from stainless steel^[20]

Inside the pyramid

The pyramid roof contains a maintenance plant. Inside there are:

• water pumped up for general water requirements
• window washing machines
• aircraft warning light
• HVAC (climate control) system
• electrical equipment

Fire system

In the event of a fire, One Canada Square is not fully evacuated. Only the floor that has the fire and the floor above are evacuated. The fire sprinkler system is activated, air conditioning will work in reverse to extract smoke, and air is blown in from the emergency exits (so that smoke does not enter the emergency exits).

The only time when One Canada Square was fully evacuated was on 30 October 2001^[21], during a test drill in response to the "September 11, 2001 attacks".

Maintenance floor

The maintenance floor above the lobby houses the air systems for the tower. It also houses the spare parts store, containing many spare parts, including many different window panes; marble for the lobby; spare electrical equipment; emergency pumps.

Notable general figures

• 1.5 seconds between each flash, 40 flashes per minute, 57,600 flashes a day from the aircraft warning light at the top of the building^[5].

• 40 seconds by lift from lobby to top floor^[5]

• 32 passenger lifts^[5] + 2 freight lifts^[5] + 2 firemens lifts^[5]

• 28,000 square feet average floor size^[5]

Building internal relations

Public access

A view from the top floor, May 2000

The ground floor, foyer area and basement levels of One Canada Square are open to the general public, having an underground shopping area and a transport interchange from Canary Wharf tube and Docklands Light Railway stations. Access from the basement also links to Canada Square shopping mall^[22].

The floors above the lobby are not opened to the public as they contain offices. The stained glass and the roundel in the foyer were designed by Charles Rennie, and are an original design. The design represents Canary Wharf, Water and Boats, illustrating the signs of London Docklands. The slate used here and in various places around the foyer on site is made from the Welsh slate shelving used in the repositories of the original Banana Warehouse at Canary Wharf.

Despite its status as the United Kingdom's tallest building, there is currently no public observation floor. However, there was an exception during 12 September 1992 - 10 November 1992, when bankruptcy administrators for Olympia & York Canary Wharf Limited opened the 50th floor to the public, in order to maintain interest in Canary Wharf. The scheme was stopped on 10 November 1992 when the IRA attempted to bomb the tower^[23] (see Terrorism section).

Light usage

Lights left on at Canary Wharf

One Canada Square was 'named and shamed' for being the top building to leave the lights on unnecessarily^[24]. The research carried out by the BBC Inside Out team found that on midnight Sunday, One Canada Square left more lights on than any other building in London^[24].

However, Canary Wharf Group did say that some tenants have staff working around the clock^[24], and 100% of the energy comes from renewable resources^[24].

13th floor

Perhaps due to superstition, there is no rentable space on the thirteenth floor and instead the floors are numbered 11, 12, 14, 15.^[6] Elevators travelling between the ground floor and 16th floor have a blank button for what should be the 13th floor. People claim that using the fire escape stairs reveals that the floors go straight from the 12th floor to the 14th floor with no space for an extra floor in between. They say that there are no observable signs of an extra floor from within the building or from outside.

Tenants

Notable current tenants

• Bank of New York Mellon^[25]
• Bear Stearns International^[7][25]
• Canary Wharf Group PLC ^[7][25]
• Euler Hermes^[7][25] UK (formerly Trade Indemnity)
• KPMG^[7][25]
• Quadrant Capital ^[25]
• State Street Bank ^[7][25]
• SWX Swiss Exchange/Virt-X (Swiss Stock Exchange)^[7][25]
• Trinity Mirror Group^[7][25] (which includes The Daily Mirror, The Sunday Mirror and The Sunday People)

Notable previous tenants

• Maersk^[26]
• Morgan Stanley Dean Witter^[27]
• London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) / London 2012^[28][29][25]
• Telegraph Media Group^[26]. The The Daily (and Sunday) Telegraph moved to Victoria^[30] in late 2006. The Daily Telegraph formerly occupied floors 11-16.

Ownership

The current owner of One Canada Square is Canary Wharf Group plc (current majority shareholder is Songbird Estates plc^[15])

External relations

Title dates

Titles such as the 'tallest building in the UK' has many methods to determine this. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) determines this by: when a building is complete, clad and at least partially open for business^[31]. Another method is using the construction date of when a building surpassed the height of another building or structure. A third method is to use the top out date.

Tallest skyscraper in the European Union

There are two views that separate if One Canada Square was ever the tallest skyscraper in the European Union (not to be confused with the tallest skyscraper in Europe).

• If it is based on completion date, then One Canada Square was never the European Union's tallest skyscraper as MesseTurm was completed in 1990^[32], and One Canada Square was completed in 1991.

• If based on construction structural height or topping out date, then One Canada Square was the European Union's tallest building^[6][33] for a period of about six months before losing this title to MesseTurm, Frankfurt, Germany.

Tallest skyscraper in the UK

There are several views of when One Canada Square surpassed the previous tallest building in the United Kingdom, which was Tower 42 (formerly known as NatWest Tower) (183 m, 600 ft).

• If based on completion date, then it is August 1991.

• If based on top out date, then One Canada Square became the tallest building in Britain on 8 November 1990.

• If based on construction structural height, then it is Summer 1990.

Tallest skyscraper in Canary Wharf

One Canada Square will be overtaken as the tallest building in Canary Wharf by Riverside Tower 1. Planning permission has been granted to build to a maximum height of 241.1 metres^[34] In August 2008, construction began on Riverside South, which will be 236m in height, one meter taller than One Canada Square.

Terrorism

On 15 November 1992, the Provisional Irish Republican Army attempted to place a large improvised explosive device^[23] near to the tower. The bomb was in a van driven near to the tower. The detonator failed to ignite the main charge^[35], and the bomb did not go off, so there was no bomb damage to Canary Wharf. As a result of this attempted bombing, the observation floor was closed (see Public access section) and security was dramatically increased at Canary Wharf.

On 9 February 1996, the IRA did detonate a large bomb at South Quay, south of Canary Wharf (outside of Canary Wharf), which killed two people and devastated several buildings. This explosion is commonly, but erroneously, referred to as the "Canary Wharf bomb"^[36][37].

There have been many news articles in recent years stating that the towers at Canary Wharf have been a target for terrorist^[38][39][40]. However, some of these plots have been denied by the government.^[41]

On 4 April 2008, a terror cell appeared at Woolwich Crown Court accused of targeting Canary Wharf. The men deny the charges^[42][43].

Community relations

Television interference

As the Canary Wharf Tower is the first skyscraper to be clad in stainless steel with metallised windows, this may have caused television reception interference for local people living in the area. In the case Patricia Hunter and others v. Canary Wharf Ltd.[1997]^[44][45], the House of Lords concluded there is no legal right to receive good television reception^[46].

In Spring 2001, the BBC received some television interference complaints from residents in the Poplar area^[47] (north of Canary Wharf). A possible cause for the interference are the other Canary Wharf towers being built^[47]. Their advice was to get digital television, satellite or cable.^[47]

In popular culture

Cinema

One Canada Square has appeared in the following notable movies:

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• The Bourne Supremacy^[48]
• Johnny English^[48]
• The World Is Not Enough^[48]
• 28 Weeks Later (a considerable part of the movie plays in and around Canary Wharf)

Television

One Canada Square has appeared in the following notable television programmes:

• Doctor Who
• The Tomorrow People
• The Apprentice (UK)^[48]

During the 1990s, One Canada Square was home to the television station L!VE TV^[48].

Paper publications

One Canada Square has appeared in the following notable paper publicatons:

• The novel Freezeframes by Katharine Kerr
• The novel Virgin Missing Adventures, Millennial Rites
• The comic Grant Morrison comic series The Invisibles

Gallery

One Canada Square (centre) with HSBC Tower to the left and Citigroup Centre to the right	Street view	Side view	One Canada Square, London
Tower and clock	Tower	Tower top with surrounding buildings	One Canada Square with its neighbouring buildings at Canary Wharf

References

See also

Canary Wharf

• Canary Wharf
• Riverside South (Canary Wharf) - the next skyscrapers to be built in Canary Wharf
• Canada Square

List of buildings/structures

• List of tallest buildings and structures in London
• List of tallest structures in the United Kingdom

Other developments

• Shard London Bridge — soon to be the tallest building in the United Kingdom

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

One Canada Square

• Official Canary Wharf website
• My Canary Wharf (includes retailers in One Canada Square)
• Skyscrapernews.com page
• Emporis Skyscrapers Factfile

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