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.

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.

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.

[2] 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.

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.

[4] Dominating the entrance to the building were two large 8.5-foot (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.

[5] 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 front of the building was lined with a colonnade of twelve large papyriform columns, painted in bright colours with Venetian glass decoration.

The main entrance was approached by a staircase, the handrails designed in the shape of serpents mounted on the wall with bronze human hands.