It is entirely appropriate that the Financial Times, which founded a now prestigious architectural aware, should be printed in a building which has itself received host of awards and commendations. Since its completion in 1988, the FT's centenary year, it has become a rare symbol of architectural excellence in the "enterprise zones" of what used to be London's docklands - a landmark as significant at the eastern entry to the city, as the Hoover Factory is at the west.
David Jenkins places the FT Print Works in the historical and architectural context of old Fleet Street, which became the centre of English newspaper publishing as it expanded and evolved. Of the great newspapers that once occupied grand buildings in and around Fleet Street until the industry's final exit from central London in the late 1980s, the FT is almost alone in maintaining its architectural standards.
Nicholas Grimshaw's cool industrial enclosure for the FT's state-of-the-art presses takes full advantage of its prominent site and the theatrical potential of the processes it houses, by revealing the machinery in view behind a spectacular glass wall. This is supported by a highly elaborated outboard structure which exemplifies Grimshaw's precise attention to detail, and can only serve to consolidate his position as one of the most internationally respected practitioners of the high-tech movement.
This monograph is a complete and detailed record of the building.
'Architecture In Detail' is a superbly photographed and technically informative series of monographs which embraces a broad spectrum of internationally renowned buildings, drawn predominantly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each sixty-page volume contains a lucid text by a respected author; a sequence of large-format, high-quality colour and black and white photographs; a comprehensive set of technical drawings and working details; and a complete bibliography and chronology, thus making these books the definitive work on the subject. They are essential purchases for enthusiasts, practitioners and students alike.
