Willis Building

The Willis Building stands in the centre of Ipswich, between busy road junctions and the Unitarian Meeting House. It is a Grade I listed office block designed by Norman Foster and Wendy Cheesman for the insurance firm now called Willis Towers Watson. Construction took place between 1970 and 1975, and the finished structure became a landmark in the ‘high tech’ style. The building’s unusual bulbous shape follows the awkward site, with three floors of open-plan offices for about 1,300 staff. Its design uses a grid of concrete pillars fourteen metres apart to support cantilevered floors. The outside is clad in dark smoked glass panels, giving the block a sleek, reflective look. Inside, floors are green and walls yellow, colours taken from the surrounding environment. A central escalator well leads to a rooftop restaurant and garden offering a 360-degree view of the town. Beneath the ground floor, the former swimming pool remains hidden under a false floor. The building was commissioned by John Roscoe, chairman of Willis Faber & Dumas, and opened in 1975 by former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. In 1991 it became one of the youngest Grade I listed buildings in Britain. Its energy-conscious features and open layouts were innovative for the time, and the design was influenced by Foster’s admiration for Manchester’s Express Building.