The London Hoover Building was originally built as a factory for which company?

The London Hoover Building was originally built as a factory for the Hoover Company.

Designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners, the building opened in Perivale in May 1933 as the company’s British headquarters, manufacturing plant and repair centre. Its striking white facade was deliberately far more theatrical than a typical factory, helping Hoover advertise its modern vacuum cleaners to motorists travelling along Western Avenue.

Demand grew quickly, so the manufacturing space was expanded during the 1930s. At its height, the site employed about 1,600 people and was celebrated as a model factory with unusually strong attention to worker welfare. During the Second World War, it also produced aircraft parts and was camouflaged against air raids.

A common mix-up is to identify the building only as an office or showroom. Those functions were present, but its original purpose combined offices with industrial production. The listed front block survived later redevelopment; the former factory site was eventually converted partly into apartments and partly into other uses.