George Val Myer

The later partnership of George Val Myer and F J Watson-Hart was to undertake significant commissions in the reconstruction of Park Lane for the Grosvenor Estate.

Val Myer and Watson-Hart had been working in 1927 for the consortium headed by Lord Waring that owned the sites at the bottom of Portland Place that the BBC had identified as a potential location for their new broadcast building.

The building linked emphatically to the rest of Regent Street through its complementary use of Portland stone but was modernistic in spirit, and adorned with radical sculptural commissions by Eric Gill, most notably the statues of Ariel and Prospero.

Val Myer worked alongside M T Tudsbery and formulated the approach of locating the office accommodation around the outside of the building to insulate a massive central brick tower of 22 broadcast studios from noise intrusion.

Val Myer’s work as chief architect of the building and the concert hall was supplemented by that of a BBC team of architects for the interiors headed by Raymond McGrath that included Serge Chermayeff, Wells Coates, Dorothy Warren Trotter and Edward Maufe, each a bespoke commission for a distinct function.