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Eric Bedford (architect)

Eric Bedford CB CVO (8 November 1909 – 28 July 2001) was a twentieth-century British architect whose most famous work is London's BT Tower. In 1961, construction began on what was then known as the Post Office Tower, with Bedford as Chief Architect and G R Yeats as senior architect in charge. Completed in 1965, with a height of 177 metres (581 ft), it became for a time London's tallest building.

Eric Bedford
CB CVO

(1909-11-08)8 November 1909

Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

28 July 2001(2001-07-28) (aged 91)

Worcester, England

British

Thornton Grammar School

Architect

BT Tower

Born in Yorkshire, and trained as an architect in the Midlands, Bedford joined the Ministry of Public Building and Works in 1936. In 1951, he was appointed the Ministry's youngest-ever Chief Architect. Shortly afterward, he had an important role in the design of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, for which he was subsequently made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.


Bedford retired in 1970, and lived abroad for some years before dying in 2001. Although he was the architect responsible for one of London's most iconic buildings, he achieved surprisingly little recognition in his lifetime, or afterward; his obituary in The New York Times described him as "the British government's anonymous chief architect, whose works were visible to millions but whose name was scarcely known".[1]

Honours[edit]

Bedford was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in the 1953 Coronation Honours,[10] and Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1959 Birthday Honours.[11]

Administrative offices of the , 1960s.[1]

Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington, D.C.

government offices, 1963–1971.[8] Pevsner considers Bedford's work at Marsham Street "ruthlessly logical"[12] but a "spectacular failure, the very image of faceless bureaucracy".[13]

Marsham Street

footbridge, 1956–1957.[9] The slightly back-handed compliment in Pevsner is: "quite handsome, and good to look out from", but the authors consider the Victorian cast-iron suspension bridge it replaced "a great loss".[14]

St James's Park

1962.[8] The embassy was subject to anti-British demonstrations throughout its existence, and the site was vacated in 2015.[15]

Embassy of the United Kingdom, Jakarta

1964.[3]

British High Commission, Ottawa

1961–1965.[16] Pevsner describes it as "a notable 1960s landmark".[17]

BT Tower

Office accommodation, Star Chamber Court, . Pevsner's single comment is "ugly". [18]

Palace of Westminster

(2005). Landmarks of Britain. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-73510-7. editions:O60YB-B7LYMC.

Aslet, Clive

Bradley, Simon; (2003). London 6: Westminster. The Buildings of England. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09595-3.

Pevsner, Nikolaus

Cherry, Bridget; (2002). London 4: North. The Buildings of England. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09653-4.

Pevsner, Nikolaus