The Sir John Laing Building, named in honour of the company’s president who died in January 1978 at the age of 98, was built between 1977 and 1980 having been planned since 1974. The building completed a phase of development at Laing’s Mill Hill headquarters complex, an area that the firm had occupied since moving from Carlisle in 1922. By 1988 however a major restructuring of the company and meant a wholesale relocation out of the Mill Hill site with just the Sir John Laing Building remaining as Group HQ. It too was subsequently demolished and housing occupies the site. The use of brick in a sculptural way was a deliberate attempt by architect Graham Barsby to distance the design from the concrete rectilinear forms of the 1960s. The building won a Certificate of Merit in the Brick Development Association Architectural Awards in 1983.
This image was catalogued as part of the Breaking New Ground Project in partnership with the John Laing Charitable Trust in 2019-20.
This is part of the Series: JLP01/10 John Laing Photographic Collection Colour Negatives and Transparencies; within the Collection: JLP01 John Laing Photographic Collection
© Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection
Brick, Late 20th Century Office
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