Matrix House, Basingstoke

Image: © Stephen Richards Taken: 26 Jun 2011

An original office block, arrow-shaped in plan, in fact two angled blocks joined by a glass atrium. Tinted glass and slick aluminium stair towers at the end. Built 1983-87 by EPR. It stands in Basing View Business Park, which sprang up largely in the 1970s as organisations were encouraged to relocate from London. According to the website, it was “dubbed the “Dallas of Hampshire” in the late 1970s, because of the striking concentration of high rise buildings”, which suggests to me a striking degree of chutzpah and/or self-delusion. In fact, I find it hard to believe that the concept existed outside the fevered imagination of one or two planners. The estate comprises one road in an elongated loop along which are strung out some twenty or so office blocks of variable quality, only one of which (Fanum House) could reasonably claim to be high-rise.

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