Carreras Cigarette Factory
Encyclopedia
The Carreras Cigarette Factory is a large Art Deco building in Camden
, London
in the United Kingdom
. It is noted as a striking example of early 20th Century Egyptian Revival architecture
. The building was erected in 1926-28 by the Carreras Tobacco Company
owned by the Russian-Jewish inventor and philanthropist Bernhard Baron
on the communal garden area of Mornington Crescent
, to a design by architects M.E and O.H Collins and A.G Porri. It is 550 feet (168 metres) long, and is mainly white,
The building's distinctive Egyptian-style ornamentation originally included a solar disc to the Sun-god Ra
, two gigantic effigies of black cats flanking the entrance and colourful painted details. When the factory was converted into offices in 1961 the Egyptian detailing was lost, but it was restored during a renovation in the late 1990s and replicas of the cats were placed outside the entrance.
, the Carreras Tobacco Company expanded its business in the 1920s, like many other tobacco companies. Carreras had outgrown its Arcadia cigarette factory in City Road
, London, so it closed the facility and opened a new Arcadia Works in 1928 in Mornington Crescent, Camden.
The architects of the Camden Arcadia Works were Marcus Evelyn Collins and O.H. Collins, along with Arthur George Porri (1877-1962) who adapted the Collins plans. The design was greatly influenced by the contemporary fashion for Egyptian-style buildings and decorative arts. The Carreras building was designed four years after Howard Carter
's 1922 expedition which uncovered the tomb
of Tutankhamun
, which had popularised Egyptian themes in the minds of many Art Deco architects at the time. The vogue for Egyptian Art Deco was also aroused by architectural displays at the Paris Exhibition of 1925
, as well as various spectacular Hollywood portrayals of Ancient Egypt. Collins, Collins and Porri additionally drew inspiration from the displays at the British Museum
. Commentators on the architecture have also speculated that the use of Egyptian decoration was used to create an association of the "luxury" image of smoking with the treasures of Ancient Egypt.
The building was opened to great fanfare; a ceremony held in from of the building involved covering the pavements in front of the building with sand to replicate the deserts of Egypt. There was a procession of cast members from a contemporary London production of Verdi's opera Aida
, actors in Ancient Egyptian costume performed around the "temple" structure, and a chariot race was held on the Hampstead Road.
Dominating the entrance to the building were two large 8.5 feet (2.6 m)-high bronze statues of cats, stylised versions of the Egyptian god Bastet (or Bubastis, or Bast), which had been cast at the Haskins Foundry in London. The image of a black cat was a branding device
which Carreras used on the packets of their Craven A
range of cigarettes. The building had thus been conceived as a "temple" to Bastet, and the architects' original drawings reveal that it was to be named Bast House (the name was dropped due to unfortunate similarities to derogatory words in English).
The cats stood guard over Arcadia Works until 1959 when Carreras merged with Rothmans of Pall Mall and moved to a new factory in Basildon
, Essex. The cats were removed from the building and separated; one was transported to Essex to stand at the Basildon works, the other exported to Jamaica
to stand outside the Carreras factory in Spanish Town
.
In 1960-62 the Camden Arcadia Works were converted into offices. The building was refurbished and stripped of all its Egyptian decoration, which was now out of fashion, in an attempt to give it a simpler, more Modernist appearance. At this time it was renamed Greater London House.
In 1996 the building was purchased by Resolution GLH who commissioned architects Finch Forman to restore the building to its former glory. The restorers consulted the original designs and aimed to recreate 80-90% of the original Art Deco features, including installing replicas of the famous cat statues. The restoration work won a Civic Trust
Award.
, coloured to look like sand. The front of the building was lined with a colonnade
of twelve large papyriform
columns, painted in bright colours with Venetian glass
decoration. The columns are thought to have been inspired by columns at tombs in Amarna
. The main entrance was approached by a staircase, the handrails designed in the shape of serpent
s mounted on the wall with bronze human hands. The entrance itself was designed in the style of a tent, similar to the cavetto-moulded lintels seen in architecture dating from the Old Kingdom
. Above the door was a carved Horus
of Behdet, a symbol of the winged disk of the Sun
. During World War II
it was felt that this symbol resembled too closely the eagle imagery
of the Third Reich and it was covered up. It was not replaced during the 1990s restoration. Cow-horned Hathor
lamps stood in front of the black cat statues. The repeated black cat logo also featured across the front of the building. Ornamental railings around the building featured Egyptian hieroglyphs
.
The building was the first factory in Britain to make use of pre-stressed concrete technology, the first to contain air conditioning
and a dust extraction plant.
, Young & Rubicam
advertising agency, ASOS.com
, EMAP Communications
, Wunderman
, Radley + Co and other companies. Thomson Holidays
UK Head Office used to sit at Greater London House, but following a restructuring it re-located to Wigmore House in Luton.
Camden Town
-Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. It is noted as a striking example of early 20th Century Egyptian Revival architecture
Egyptian Revival architecture
Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Admiral Nelson's defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile during 1798....
. The building was erected in 1926-28 by the Carreras Tobacco Company
Carreras Tobacco Company
The House of Carreras was a tobacco business that was established in London in the nineteenth century by a nobleman from Spain, Don José Carreras Ferrer. It continued as an independent company until November 1958, when it merged with Rothmans of Pall Mall...
owned by the Russian-Jewish inventor and philanthropist Bernhard Baron
Bernhard Baron
Bernhard Baron was a Jewish cigarette-manufacturer and philanthropist. He was born at Brest-Litovsk , in poor circumstances, and brought up among the Don Cossacks at Rostov. His father took him to the United States when young; and there, after working at a tobacco factory, he began making the...
on the communal garden area of Mornington Crescent
Mornington Crescent (street)
Mornington Crescent is also a street off the A4 near Heathrow Airport.Mornington Crescent is a street in Camden, London, England. It was built in the 1820s, on a greenfield site just to the north of central London. The crescent was named after the Earl of Mornington, brother of the Duke of Wellington...
, to a design by architects M.E and O.H Collins and A.G Porri. It is 550 feet (168 metres) long, and is mainly white,
The building's distinctive Egyptian-style ornamentation originally included a solar disc to the Sun-god Ra
Ra
Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...
, two gigantic effigies of black cats flanking the entrance and colourful painted details. When the factory was converted into offices in 1961 the Egyptian detailing was lost, but it was restored during a renovation in the late 1990s and replicas of the cats were placed outside the entrance.
History
As demand for cigarettes increased during the First World WarWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the Carreras Tobacco Company expanded its business in the 1920s, like many other tobacco companies. Carreras had outgrown its Arcadia cigarette factory in City Road
City Road
City Road or The City Road is a road that runs through inner north and central London. The northwestern extremity of the road is at the Angel, Islington where it forms a continuation of Pentonville Road. Pentonville Road itself is the modern name for London's first bypass, the New Road from...
, London, so it closed the facility and opened a new Arcadia Works in 1928 in Mornington Crescent, Camden.
The architects of the Camden Arcadia Works were Marcus Evelyn Collins and O.H. Collins, along with Arthur George Porri (1877-1962) who adapted the Collins plans. The design was greatly influenced by the contemporary fashion for Egyptian-style buildings and decorative arts. The Carreras building was designed four years after Howard Carter
Howard Carter (archaeologist)
Howard Carter was an English archaeologist and Egyptologist, noted as a primary discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun.-Beginning of career:...
's 1922 expedition which uncovered the tomb
KV62
KV62 is the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings , which became famous for the wealth of treasure it contained. The tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, underneath the remains of workmen's huts built during the Ramesside Period; this explains why it was spared from the worst of...
of Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun , Egyptian , ; approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty , during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom...
, which had popularised Egyptian themes in the minds of many Art Deco architects at the time. The vogue for Egyptian Art Deco was also aroused by architectural displays at the Paris Exhibition of 1925
Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes
The International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts was a World's fair held in Paris, France, from April to October 1925. The term "Art Deco" was derived by shortening the words Arts Décoratifs, in the title of this exposition, but not until the late 1960s by British art critic...
, as well as various spectacular Hollywood portrayals of Ancient Egypt. Collins, Collins and Porri additionally drew inspiration from the displays at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. Commentators on the architecture have also speculated that the use of Egyptian decoration was used to create an association of the "luxury" image of smoking with the treasures of Ancient Egypt.
The building was opened to great fanfare; a ceremony held in from of the building involved covering the pavements in front of the building with sand to replicate the deserts of Egypt. There was a procession of cast members from a contemporary London production of Verdi's opera Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, actors in Ancient Egyptian costume performed around the "temple" structure, and a chariot race was held on the Hampstead Road.
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
which Carreras used on the packets of their Craven A
Craven A
Craven "A" is a brand of cigarette which were made in Canada, Jamaica, Vietnam, and North Korea. The cigarettes exhibit the English-style flavor of a Virginia-tobacco dominant blend, with that plant's attendant nutty sweetness. The cigarette was named after the third Earl of Craven in 1860.Craven...
range of cigarettes. The building had thus been conceived as a "temple" to Bastet, and the architects' original drawings reveal that it was to be named Bast House (the name was dropped due to unfortunate similarities to derogatory words in English).
The cats stood guard over Arcadia Works until 1959 when Carreras merged with Rothmans of Pall Mall and moved to a new factory in Basildon
Basildon
Basildon is a town located in the Basildon District of the county of Essex, England.It lies east of Central London and south of the county town of Chelmsford...
, Essex. The cats were removed from the building and separated; one was transported to Essex to stand at the Basildon works, the other exported to Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
to stand outside the Carreras factory in Spanish Town
Spanish Town
Spanish Town is the capital and the largest town in the parish of St. Catherine in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica. It was the former Spanish and English capital of Jamaica from the 16th to the 19th century...
.
In 1960-62 the Camden Arcadia Works were converted into offices. The building was refurbished and stripped of all its Egyptian decoration, which was now out of fashion, in an attempt to give it a simpler, more Modernist appearance. At this time it was renamed Greater London House.
In 1996 the building was purchased by Resolution GLH who commissioned architects Finch Forman to restore the building to its former glory. The restorers consulted the original designs and aimed to recreate 80-90% of the original Art Deco features, including installing replicas of the famous cat statues. The restoration work won a Civic Trust
Civic Trust
The Civic Trust of England was a charitable organisation founded in 1957. It ceased operations in 2009 and went into administration due to lack of funds/...
Award.
Architecture
The Carreras Cigraette Factory was faced in Atlas White cementCement
In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...
, coloured to look like sand. The front of the building was lined with a colonnade
Colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building....
of twelve large papyriform
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
columns, painted in bright colours with Venetian glass
Venetian glass
Venetian glass is a type of glass object made in Venice, Italy, primarily on the island of Murano. It is world-renowned for being colourful, elaborate, and skillfully made....
decoration. The columns are thought to have been inspired by columns at tombs in Amarna
Amarna
Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty , and abandoned shortly afterwards...
. The main entrance was approached by a staircase, the handrails designed in the shape of serpent
Serpent
Serpent may refer to:* Serpent, a synonym for snake* Serpent , the name given to a snake in a religious or mythological context* Serpent , said to have tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden* Serpent in astronomy...
s mounted on the wall with bronze human hands. The entrance itself was designed in the style of a tent, similar to the cavetto-moulded lintels seen in architecture dating from the Old Kingdom
Old Kingdom
Old Kingdom is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The term itself was...
. Above the door was a carved Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
of Behdet, a symbol of the winged disk of the Sun
Winged sun
The winged sun is a symbol associated with divinity, royalty and power in the Ancient Near East . The symbol has also been found in the records of ancient cultures residing in various regions of South America as well as Australia.- Ancient Egyptian use :In Ancient Egypt, the symbol is attested...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
it was felt that this symbol resembled too closely the eagle imagery
Nazi symbolism
The twentieth century German Nazi Party was notable for its extensive use of graphic symbolism, most notably the Hakenkreuz , which it used as its principal symbol, and, in the form of the swastika flag, became the state flag of Nazi Germany....
of the Third Reich and it was covered up. It was not replaced during the 1990s restoration. Cow-horned Hathor
Hathor
Hathor , is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood and joy. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt...
lamps stood in front of the black cat statues. The repeated black cat logo also featured across the front of the building. Ornamental railings around the building featured Egyptian hieroglyphs
Hieroglyphs
Hieroglyph or hieroglyphics may refer to:*Anatolian hieroglyphs*Chinese character*Cretan hieroglyphs*Cursive hieroglyphs*Dongba script*Egyptian hieroglyphs*Hieroglyphic Luwian*Mayan hieroglyphs...
.
The building was the first factory in Britain to make use of pre-stressed concrete technology, the first to contain air conditioning
Air conditioning
An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...
and a dust extraction plant.
The building today
Greater London House today houses offices for the British Heart FoundationBritish Heart Foundation
The British Heart Foundation is a charity organisation in Britain that funds research, education, care and awareness campaigns aimed to prevent heart diseases in humans.-Foundation:...
, Young & Rubicam
Young & Rubicam
Y&R is a marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting.-History:...
advertising agency, ASOS.com
ASOS.com
ASOS.com is the UK's largest online-only fashion and beauty store. Primarily aimed at 16-34 year old men and women, it offers over 35,000 own-label and branded fashion goods. Sales for the financial year ending 31 March 2011 were £339.7 million....
, EMAP Communications
EMAP
Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences...
, Wunderman
Wunderman
Wunderman is a network of advertising, marketing and consulting companies with offices in 55 countries. Headquartered in New York City, Wunderman is part of Young & Rubicam Brands and a member of WPP Group .- History :...
, Radley + Co and other companies. Thomson Holidays
Thomson Holidays
Thomson Holidays is a UK based travel operator and part of TUI Travel PLC. The company was founded as part of the Thomson Travel Group in 1965 following the acquisition of three package holiday travel agencies and the airline Britannia Airways by Roy Thomson...
UK Head Office used to sit at Greater London House, but following a restructuring it re-located to Wigmore House in Luton.
See also
- List of Art Deco architecture in the United Kingdom