The Empress State Building is a big, scary, funny-shaped empty building in west
London. It sits near the junction of Lillie Road and Ongar Road.
Imagine the shape formed between three circles placed so their edges
all touch and the centres are the points of a triangle. This is the
shape of each of its 30-or-so floors. Its walls are a
dirty blue.
When the sun is in the right part of the sky, it shines all the way through the building from one side to the other,
revealing it to be totally empty. No furniture or anything. Yet, at night, one light in the eastern-most corner
is always on.
It looks like a sci-fi spire on the Earl's Court Exhibition
Centre, forming a futuristic church of commerce.
A curious construction sits atop the building, resembling most closely one of those air traffic control rooms.
Update: 26/8/2000 The beast awakens?
Over the last few days, I have noticed that a floodlight has been positioned so as to light the thing up at night.
Last night, the flood light was off, but top storey had all its internal lights on. However, as far as I can tell, it
is still possible to see all the way through to the other side.
Update: 17/11/2001 The beast awakens?
Over the last few months, a construction hoarding as gone up for a firm called "Gaybank". Work is underway to convert
the building to a set of flexible offices for organisations requiring short-term office-space. The whole building is
now usually lit-up as construction work and fit-out is underway.
Update: 06/03/2002 Major Re-contruction
I now know that the building is being re-furbished as a rented office facility.
Update: 01/11/2003 All lit up and ready to go
It seems that the building is about ready for new tenants. It's got blue lights at the top of each corner, fading to green lights at the bottom, and apparently a revolving restaurant at the top!