184 Shepherd's Bush Road / ColladoCollins Architects

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Text description provided by the architects. 184 Shepherd’s Bush Road was originally designed and built in 1915-16 as a motor garage and service depot with a showroom for the Ford Motor Company (England) Ltd. In 1926 it was taken over by Citroen as its main UK distribution and sales centre and later on acquired by Osram and incorporated as part of the large factory complex manufacturing electric light bulb filaments. The journal The Motor in 1920 described the building as ‘a massive structure of three storeys, designed solely from a utility point of view’. The concrete frame illustrated pioneering approaches to construction and materials technology for this period. The building was originally intended to be five storeys high, however due to the outbreak of the First World War the building and its use was identified by the War Office as being vital to the war effort. This meant that the two upper floors were never constructed which made the building appear unproportional and squat. Most of the interior of the former servicing depot comprised spaces where machinery associated with servicing cars and assembling parts were kept. By 2010 only a few features other than the structural elements themselves remained: elements of the former ground floor showroom area; the stairs up to the sales room and small office area at first floor. These were retained as original decorative features and finishes in ColladoCollins’ design.