Most people now, especially younger and newer Bristolians, probably don’t give the Spectrum Building a second glance. It’s just that office block made of glass that’s sort of lost in all the visual and actual noise of busy Bond Street, a place you pass on the way to, or from Broadmead/Cabot Circus.
But when it opened in the autumn of 1984, it aroused strong passions. Some people hated it, a lot of people loved it, but above all it was of its time. This building yells “1980s!!” at people, whether they can hear it or not.
This shimmering blue vision looked like just the sort of place where thrusting yuppies would work doing something important in financial services. This was where you imagined you’d find chaps in red braces and women with big hair and shoulder-pads.
Another big plus was the air-conditioning, though it was said that this was as much about filtering out traffic fumes as it was about keeping workers cool in what was, after all, a massive greenhouse.
It cost £6m and was designed by BGP Group Architects, who had also built Wessex House, the Wessex Water HQ on the harbour close to the shot tower.
When it was completed, architect and architectural historian Mike Jenner wrote in the Post that when he drove past it, “my eyes light up, nearly always. It gives me pleasure.”
The problem, he said, was that on days when skies are grey (i.e. most) he liked it a lot less.
The development took the place of a dense warren of streets, and the old Bunch of Grapes pub, and with it the Stonehouse, a popular folk music club, though in its day you could see all manner of musical acts there.
There were teething problems, too, in stopping those great big windows from fogging up, and a real fear that if moisture got between the panes there’d be no end of expense in cleaning the stains. Boffins from Bristol University were called in a few years after it opened and they sorted it.
The building was/is used as offices by a range of different firms, but nothing interesting seems to have happened there since 1985, when the RAC’s legal services Division, which was based there at the, won substantial damages for a member whose car fell victim to a rubber band.
The band was being wound round a bull’s testicles to effect temporary castration, causing said animal to leap over a hedge onto said RAC member’s car, reshaping the roof.
So yes, there was a big gulf between the Wall Street-style stereotype of swashbuckling finance and Michael Douglas declaring that “lunch is for wimps” and the reality of office life over here. Any male entering the building wearing red braces would probably have faced merciless ridicule. This is Bristol, after all.
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