Home > Portcullis House
Portcullis House is a building in Westminster, London, used as offices for members of Parliament. Office space has traditionally been very hard to find in the Palace of Westminster and nearby buildings, so in 1998 the House authorised the construction of a new building to provide offices for MPs and their staff. Perhaps unsurprisingly the press had a field day complaining about the expense.It opened in 2001 and today houses offices for 450 MPs. It is at the corner of Bridge Street and Victoria Embankment, overlooks the River Thames, and sits above Westminster tube station. It was designed at the same time as the station by the same designers, Michael Hopkins & Partners, and structurally forms a single unit with the station. A thick slab of concrete separates Portcullis House from the station, reportedly to defend against any underground bomb attacks.
The rest of the parliamentary offices still are located in the Norman Shaw Building, which was until 1967 the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police.
The building's curious profile, with its rows of tall chimneys, is intended to recall the Victorian Gothic design of the Palace of Westminster and to fit in with the chimneys of the Norman Shaw Building next door. Portcullis House's chimneys are not used to expel fumes but are in fact part of an ingenious unpowered air conditioning system, which is designed to draw air through the building by exploiting natural convection flows.
The building is named after the chained portcullis used to symbolise the Houses of Parliament on letterheads and official documents.
London architecture
