Insurance, insurtech, and the architecture 209
Holborn Bars, was a loud statement to that effect. It was designed by Sir
Alfred Waterhouse in a Victorian gothic revivalist style and was the largest
and most expensive commission he undertook.
Prudential’s headquarters dominated the Holborn landscape and it set
the standard for a series of giant industrial assurance buildings across
the United Kingdom, including the Royal Liver on Merseyside, Liverpool
and the Refuge Assurance building in Manchester. These buildings were
designed to accommodate growth and incorporated technological innovations, including telephones, pneumatic tube messaging systems, and electricity, that were becoming central to the mass data processing functions
of large insurers. Still, they were never meant to function as purely practical sites of operations. These elaborately ornamented monster buildings
were symbols of the capital value and economic resilience of insurance.
Prudential seldom missed an opportunity to represent the building, it
was photographed, drawn, and painted, appearing in policies, letterhead, posters, postcards, calendars, etc. When the company purchased
£628,800 of war bonds in 1917 it had a tank parked outside Holborn Bars
with the chairman on top presenting the cheque in a spectacle that was
photographed, filmed, and replayed in newspapers and newsreel footage
in cinemas all over the country (McFall 2014). Prudential also repeated its
chief building by commissioning Waterhouse to design its branch offices.
Twenty-one of these buildings were built between 1879 and 1904 – ‘all featured the same trademark style and gave the company a distinctive corporate identity’ (Prudential Assurance 2008) that again was amplified in
print (see Figure 15.4).
This network of insurance buildings had a significant impact on the urban
landscape. It can still be traced in ghost signs and inscriptions etched into
the stonework of buildings that began to be sold off or leased and repurposed, often as grand hotels or serviced offices, in the late twentieth century.
The effect of insurance’s capital investment in property beyond their own
premises, however, is much less visible. A number of studies have documented the extent of insurance institutions’ investment in property in the
United Kingdom (e.g. Baker & Collins 2003; Pryke 1992; Henneberry &
Crosby 2015) but their focus has not been on the resulting transformation
of urban environments. For that, the most relevant scholarship centres on
the United States.
The Prudential Insurance Corporation of America (hereafter PIC),
despite modelling itself on its UK namesake, has no formal relationship
to it. Founded in 1873, its initial influence on the urban landscape, similar
to the British company, came directly in the form of its own buildings and
indirectly in its role as a mortgage lender. PIC stayed with the visual theme
of solidity and permanence through its ‘Rock of Gibraltar’ trademark and
hammered it home in offices that were designed to rival the scale of institutional architecture featuring ‘massive promontories that both dominated
and shaped their urban landscapes’ (Rubin 2009, p. 3). This influence grew
Holborn Bars, was a loud statement to that effect. It was designed by Sir
Alfred Waterhouse in a Victorian gothic revivalist style and was the largest
and most expensive commission he undertook.
Prudential’s headquarters dominated the Holborn landscape and it set
the standard for a series of giant industrial assurance buildings across
the United Kingdom, including the Royal Liver on Merseyside, Liverpool
and the Refuge Assurance building in Manchester. These buildings were
designed to accommodate growth and incorporated technological innovations, including telephones, pneumatic tube messaging systems, and electricity, that were becoming central to the mass data processing functions
of large insurers. Still, they were never meant to function as purely practical sites of operations. These elaborately ornamented monster buildings
were symbols of the capital value and economic resilience of insurance.
Prudential seldom missed an opportunity to represent the building, it
was photographed, drawn, and painted, appearing in policies, letterhead, posters, postcards, calendars, etc. When the company purchased
£628,800 of war bonds in 1917 it had a tank parked outside Holborn Bars
with the chairman on top presenting the cheque in a spectacle that was
photographed, filmed, and replayed in newspapers and newsreel footage
in cinemas all over the country (McFall 2014). Prudential also repeated its
chief building by commissioning Waterhouse to design its branch offices.
Twenty-one of these buildings were built between 1879 and 1904 – ‘all featured the same trademark style and gave the company a distinctive corporate identity’ (Prudential Assurance 2008) that again was amplified in
print (see Figure 15.4).
This network of insurance buildings had a significant impact on the urban
landscape. It can still be traced in ghost signs and inscriptions etched into
the stonework of buildings that began to be sold off or leased and repurposed, often as grand hotels or serviced offices, in the late twentieth century.
The effect of insurance’s capital investment in property beyond their own
premises, however, is much less visible. A number of studies have documented the extent of insurance institutions’ investment in property in the
United Kingdom (e.g. Baker & Collins 2003; Pryke 1992; Henneberry &
Crosby 2015) but their focus has not been on the resulting transformation
of urban environments. For that, the most relevant scholarship centres on
the United States.
The Prudential Insurance Corporation of America (hereafter PIC),
despite modelling itself on its UK namesake, has no formal relationship
to it. Founded in 1873, its initial influence on the urban landscape, similar
to the British company, came directly in the form of its own buildings and
indirectly in its role as a mortgage lender. PIC stayed with the visual theme
of solidity and permanence through its ‘Rock of Gibraltar’ trademark and
hammered it home in offices that were designed to rival the scale of institutional architecture featuring ‘massive promontories that both dominated
and shaped their urban landscapes’ (Rubin 2009, p. 3). This influence grew