Imperial Chemical House

Imperial Chemical House is a Grade II listed building situated on Millbank, London, England, near the west end of Lambeth Bridge.

It was designed by Sir Frank Baines in the neoclassical style of the inter-war years, and constructed between 1927 and 1929 as the headquarters for the newly created Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI).

Both buildings were built to house offices for the newly formed ICI, created in 1926 after the mergers of Nobel Industries, United Alkali, British Dyestuffs and Brunner Mond.

Each giant niche has a set-back window topped by a peacock sculpture and arched light above, and each is dedicated to a different chemist, with a portrait carved into the keystone and their name carved onto a balcony – four directly associated with ICI and its predecessors, Ludwig Mond, Alfred Mond, Harry McGowan, and Alfred Nobel, and four others, Justus von Liebig, Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier, and Dmitri Mendeleev.

The figures were sculpted by Charles Sargeant Jagger, and represent the industries of construction (The Builder), marine transport, for agriculture (The Sower), and chemistry.

It originally contained some 700 rooms, covering 2.8 hectares (6.9 acres), with a floor area of 34,000 square metres (370,000 sq ft), arranged around three large light wells.