Renault’s Architectural Icon Of The ‘80s
In 1982 the Falklands War happened, the movie E.T. made ugly cute, and Time magazine’s person of the year the personal computer. The PC was the cornerstone of much of what we have today, but High-tech Architecture was already well established and in 1982 its high priest had just completed one of the most remarkable buildings in this style.
The building for Renault was not only remarkable because of what it looked like, but also where it was and what it was. It was in unfashionable Swindon and it was an automotive distribution centre.
When you think of a distribution centre, you envisage a huge, featureless, windowless block with loading bays in an industrial area near the airport. Not this one. It is yellow and it is huge – 25 000 square metres. It has 59 bright-yellow masts that support the arched steel beams supporting the roof. The walls were inset two metres under the roof and they are not part of the structure of the building.
The reason for the towers was that the building was modular, and the roof of each module could be adjusted as the needs of the building changed over its lifetime. Each of the 42 square-metre modules was 24 x 24 metres.
36 of these modules created a warehouse space of 20 000 metres. Six more contained a training school, workshops, offices and a staff restaurant. There was a showroom with cars suspended from the ceiling. The non-warehouse parts of the building featured furniture, including special glass tables, that was specifically designed for this building.
Each module had a PVC membrane roof stretched across a grid of arched steel-beams. These roofs were held up by ties connected to the masts at their corners. These ties could be adjusted and gave the building its flexibility.
The masts and skeleton were bright Renault yellow and this gave the building its unique character. In fact, the building was so Renault that it, of all the company’s buildings, did not need to carry Renault branding.
Renault sold the building in 2001 and it is now known as the Spectrum Building. It houses a tyre distribution centre and large children’s play park, something Foster is ‘delighted’ by.
Most of the time stories about car companies involve cars. Sometimes they do not. We hope you enjoyed this little non-car snippet. Please keep up with our news and stories about matters Renault.
Image Source: Flickr
