AMP House and Staveley House, Dingwall Road

Image: © Stephen Richards Taken: Unknown

Built for the Australian Mutual Provident Society in 1968-70, but now just an acronym. The architects were Fuller, Hall and Foulsham. It has a decorated concrete fascia above the ground floor. See also: Image Its smaller relation, Staveley House, doesn't look long for this world. The adjacent site has already been cleared and probably the only thing that can save it now is the current economic climate. Update: despite the economic climate, by March it had been turned into a large pile of rubble. Between the 1950s and the 1970s Croydon experienced a burst of commercial development unparalleled anywhere else in the country. The impetus was provided by the Croydon Corporation Act of 1956 which gave Croydon Council powers to develop land in the borough. A combination of improved roads, government incentives to relocate from, and Croydon's proximity to, central London, and lower rents attracted employers in their droves. By 1970 about six million square feet of office space had been provided in central Croydon. Development has continued since, but at a much slower rate. From a distance the skyline is impressive (the nearest this country comes to Manhattan), but the problem is that few of the buildings are of architectural merit.

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