120 Fleet Street

Futurecity was appointed by CO-RE to develop a Cultural Plan and help identify and broker new cultural partners for 120 Fleet Street in the City of London. The scheme includes the Grade II* listed former Daily Express Building, one of the finest Art Deco buildings in the country, which is being restored beyond its former glory to become a standalone building offering space for cultural occupiers and incorporating a new free to access rooftop pocket park. The commercial development will provide highly sustainable state of the art commercial accommodation and form a new retail and cultural destination.

The new building by architects BIG has been skilfully designed into its setting which juxtaposes the finer urban grain and character of Fleet Street with the larger new commercial developments to the north, this tiering form enabling the creation of numerous south facing terraces affording outstanding panoramic views across London.

Nestled between The Strand & Aldwych cultural corridor and Culture Mile, this site will become a cultural stop for the Fleet Street area. The opening of the Art Deco architectural gem to the public will engage the tangible and intangible heritage of the building – its design brilliance and the importance of the City of London’s unique offer to step through every period of history through significant architecture and the intangible heritage of publishing – freedom through text and words, daily communication available to everybody, techniques of print and typology and self-publishing. 

The resulting Cultural Plan sets out the uses of the site and identifies potential anchor partners and programming partners – underpinning these suggestions with a business model for how the spaces throughout the building and the public realm could work in cohesion and activate one of the City’s most iconic buildings. The scheme received planning permission in mid 2021 and Futurecity will be devising a Cultural Implementation Strategy for the site in 2023.