Lloyd's of London

From 1688 when Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house in which to conduct his shipping insurance business, he encouraged a wide clientele of ships’ captains, merchants, ship owners and others with an interest in overseas trade. This was crucial to successful underwriting and ensured that Lloyd’s quickly became recognised as the best place for obtaining marine insurance.

While Lloyd’s may be able to trace its roots to a seventeenth century coffee house, the modern incarnation of the society is now considered the centre of the world’s insurance market. Lloyd’s today clearly reflects its historic roots. It is still a society of underwriters formed into syndicates, who have stalls in the Lloyd’s market, and agree terms for accepting risk. Lloyd’s efficiency and reputation continues to depend on a single market place, located under one roof, known as The Room.

When Richard Rogers Partnership first began to work with Lloyd’s in 1977, the institution had traded from two buildings, the 1928 building designed by Sir Edwin Cooper with its main entrance on Leadenhall Street, and the 1958 building on Lime Street which housed The Room.  Having moved its operations twice in 50 years, Lloyds were keen to commission a new building to last through the 21st century.  In particular, The Room was completely inadequate for the burgeoning team of underwriters.

The Chairman of Lloyd’s decided that finding an architect who could work with them to produce a strategy for development and expansion, rather than simply another new building, was a priority. As such, the principle requirements of the Lloyd’s brief were; to cater for the needs of the market into the twenty-first century, while retaining a single underwriting room; to maintain full continuity of trading with minimum disturbance throughout the construction programme; to facilitate the flexible expansion and contraction of the underwriting space; and to create a building of quality which not only contributes to the environment of the City of London, but maintains Lloyd’s position at the centre of the world’s insurance trade.