PAST IMPERFECT:A landmark design, the Michelin Building is an architectural gem, writes Bob Montgomery
THE FRENCH tyre maker, Michelin, did not arrive on the British market until 1904, when Dunlop's patents legally expired. In that year they rented a small office in London to service the very promising emerging UK market.
Already by 1907 the British market for cars was the biggest in Europe, with 53,000 registered vehicles - well ahead of France, with 31,000 and Germany with 16,000 vehicles.
Because the British tyre market was dominated by Dunlop and also because of its potential importance, the chairman of Michelin, André Michelin, decided to build a headquarters in London which would reflect the company's ambitions.
The result was Michelin House, designed by a Michelin employee, François Espinasse. Described as a "three-dimensional declaration of intent", it was opened after two years of construction in 1911. The building, which included a tyre-fitting bay, was an early example of the ferro-concrete construction system.
Located at the junction of Fulham Road, Sloane Avenue and Lucan Place, the new building was unusual in a London context in employing colour in its architecture, something that was almost unheard of in commercial buildings in Britain at the time. The press enthused over its ceramic facade and the huge stained glass windows - each of which featured one of the company's advertising posters.
The largest of these windows, at the front of the building, featured Bibendum, the rubber man featured in all of Michelin's promotional material.
Local residents declared that it was at night that the building was most impressive, when the two glass cupolas on its twin turrets gave out an intense yellow light, while the central window, backlit by a mercury lamp, glowed a ghostly grey-blue.
Essentially, the whole building was an advertisement and, as such, had no precedent at the time. Perhaps for this reason it also had many critics, but by the 1920s it was receiving critical acclaim from such avant-garde artists as Rodchenko and Mayakovsky. It was a style that began to be increasingly adopted in the design of petrol stations in the decades that followed.
As time passed and the building began to be recognised as the architectural gem that it is, attention began to focus on some of the advertising panels on its walls.
Best known of these are the 34 ceramic panels mounted around the side and in the entrance hall. These panels record the major events and sporting victories with which Michelin was associated in the pioneering days of motoring: the Michelin brothers' expedition from Paris to Bordeaux and back; the Gordon Bennett cup; and the St Petersburg to Moscow Rally are among the events featured by the artists who have managed to capture the atmosphere of these early pioneers' trials and tribulations.
In 1985, Michelin moved out of this landmark London building and it was purchased by the late publisher Paul Hamlyn and the restaurateur and retailer Sir Terence Conran.
The pair had discovered that they were bidding against each other for the building and so joined forces to purchase it.
The two shared a love of the building and embarked on a major restoration in which all of the key original features were retained.
In August 1987, the Michelin Building, a unique icon of early automobilism, re-opened, incorporating a retail store, restaurant, bar and office space.