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St George’s DayWe’re in London’s salubrious Mayfair – and it’s freezing. When we say freezing,we don’t mean quite cold, or even really cold. We’ve just walked past a clock-cum-thermometer and it has told us two things; we’re bang on time for our tourof the new Kleinwort Benson London home and it is zero degrees centigrade. So, for more reasons than one, we can’t wait to get inside.

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k leinwort Benson is anindependently owned private bankand leading provider of wealth

management solutions to private individualsand fund administration services tocorporate clients, operating from a networkof offices across the UK, Channel Islandsand Isle of Man. Rated as the topperforming wealth manager in the FinancialTimes Private Client Wealth ManagementSurvey 2010 and winner of the Best Private

Bank 2008, Kleinwort Benson has longbeen one of the most respected names inthe City.

In fact, for more than 200 years,companies founded by the Kleinwort andBenson families and their successors haveplayed a leading role in banking and finance– both in the UK and overseas.

Today, the firm is ranked amongst thetop providers of both Fund Administrationand Custodian Trustee services,

administrating over $14 billion across morethan 100 different alternative asset classschemes throughout the globe.

We’re met in the beautiful reception byinterior designers HLW’s Bronte Turner,who, before leading us into the heart of thebuilding, tells us about this impressive frontof house facility.

‘This side of the building is threeHanoverian town houses,’ Bronte begins.‘This is all listed on this side. The front door

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was the only door for a 55,000 sq ftbuilding, so when we originally startedlooking at the stacking and the circulationhere, there were clearly massive issuesgetting 400 people in and out of the onedoor every day. Plus, this is an investmentbank with important clients and we didn’twant both staff and clients both using thisdoor and coming into this area – or to havestaff going out for a cigarette and bumpinginto clients.

‘The solution we came up with was toput in a new staff entrance on the side of

the building, and this listed space here isnow the client facing entrance.’

We ask Bronte to tell us a little moreabout the origins of the project. ‘Thisbuilding was redeveloped two or three yearsago now,’ she recalls. ‘Eric Parry wasresponsible for the new part of the building– knocking through the three town houses.When we came on board it was all Cat Ashell and core.

‘Kleinwort Benson used to be part ofCommerzbank, then, two years ago, theywere acquired by RHJ International. They

were, at this point, based in FenchurchStreet, and before that on Gresham Street.

‘The KB green is a nod to their heritage– it comes from British Racing Green. Theyfelt that, through the various acquisitions,they’d started to lose their ‘Englishness’ –lost touch with their history a bit. AtGresham Street they were on massivefloorplates and were essentially lost in themiddle of another bank’s brand. It was also abit dreary and monotone.

So now they have come from one bigopen floorplate, where everyone knew eachother’s faces, to a space where thedepartments needed to be separated –which potentially was a major issue here.Stacking the building and getting people inan out were certainly the biggest challengesfor us – along with the floor levels and floorheights, which, when it came to the frontend of the building, English Heritage wereespecially concerned about. I think wereally had to go above and beyond todeliver the right solutions – but it wascertainly all worth it in the end.

‘They found this building two years ago– and really got a great deal here. Whenthey were at Gresham Street they used todo a lot of business lunches in this part of

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����������town, and occasionally clients would comein to use the Commerzbank facilities, but itwasn’t Kleinwort Benson per se. When theysigned the lease here, we realised thebuilding reflected them perfectly; you havethe listed, historic, solid part and this new,modern and contemporary part. That’s reallywhere we got a lot of ideas – twisting theold with the new, respecting the past butalso trying to take the business forward intoits next 300 years.’

Even here in the ‘historic’ part of thebuilding, there are nice modern twists, suchas contemporary takes on classical artworksand furniture. Moving through the building,however, we find a very different but no lessexciting interior scheme.

Although we were never in any doubtthat we are in the home of a 21st centuryorganisation, it is now the contemporarywhich dominates, whilst the occasional nodto the classic adds that clever twist.

Of course, from the client-facing front ofthe building, there is little or no indicationthat this Tardis-like extension even exists.‘Here we have the staff entrance,’ Brontepoints out. ‘We had to play with theelevation of the brand new building –which was challenging. We’ve usedcontemporary artwork underneath theeaves, then we had to nibble into the slab

and do a fair amount of structural workhere. I think it works – it’s nice.

‘There is a simple, elegant plaque at thefront of the building, whereas we’ve beenable to use large-format window graphicshere for the staff entrance – another nod tothe contemporary nature of this space.’

Whilst we are now stood in an open,relaxed and very smart staff lounge-cum-coffee bar, there are also glimpses of theworking heart of the bank beyond. Thecontemporary twist is on the classic is at itsmost visible here, with Louis Ghost andPanton chairs mixing with artisan-chicwooden tables. ‘In terms of splitting facilitiesacross the floors, this is the only space thathas microwaves and food heating facilities,’Bronte continues. ‘What we were trying toachieve was to bring people down here intothe heart of the building. The tables here areoften full. Every floor has tea and coffee andmeeting spaces, but this is where peoplecome to eat and interact.

‘On the first floor we have a clientlounge, where we have a concierge, we haveiPads – clients can essentially use it as adrop-in lounge, not dissimilar from a high-end hotel.

‘The work spaces here have been futureplanned, as RHJ were starting toaccumulate and restructure. The trading

room was planned for 50 people, which wasto take up to 3-5 years. It’s already full aftersix months! That says something about thedynamic of the business. We have additionalspace here, which looks as though it will bebrought into use pretty quickly.’

We move up the floors, and take a lookat the aforementioned client lounge – andwhat a lounge! As Bronte explained, iPadsare casually placed where newspapers andmagazines would have once been strewn,whilst the eclectic mix of seating anddecoration really does give the impressionthat you could be sat in one of the capital’smore exclusive hotel lobbies.

Each of the working floors boasts whatBronte describes as a teapoint as you exitthe lifts – although this might be doingthese impressive, open breakout spaces adisservice. Yet again, the design of thesespaces features a subtle and clever twist ofthe classic and the contemporary. Here wecan also really see the challenge HLW facedwith the differing levels and heights of thetwo structures. ‘The CEO, COO and CFOdon’t have their own offices,’ Bronte showsus. ‘Instead they have an executive suite –they have all their desks in one large room,with a meeting table in the middle. Thisreally suite the front, listed part of thebuilding, and it really works well for them.We see them sat at the meeting table all the time.’

Another key issue here was space-planning. Although initially this may havelooked akin to putting a square peg into around hole, the floorplates here actuallylend themselves to natural departmentaldivides, with adjacencies becoming themain factor. Bright, clean and, we’re told,carefully budgeted, these spaces featuresmart Dynamobel desking systems, Alcovebreakout zones and subtle use of KB green.

We haven’t even mentioned the topfloor, which features a client dining suiteand a variety of formal meeting andreception spaces. Here we can see the cleveruse of timber and other materials that havebeen used to link the floors together. Theresult is a unified and coherent designscheme. With, of course, a twist

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essential ingredients | Client • Kleinwort Benson | Interior Design • HLW 020 7566 6800

Project Manager• JLL | M&E Engineer • Chapman Bathurst | Quantity Surveyor • BAP | Main Contractor • Mitie

Catering Consultant • Tricon | Acoustic Engineer • Dean Austin Associates

Furniture Supply • Spacecraft 020 7253 5800

Furniture • Dynamobel 020 7490 0494 / Opus Magnum 020 8870 1202

Partitioning • Clestra 020 8773 2121

Carpet • Milliken 01942 612777

Joinery • Thorpes of Great Glen 0116 259 3888

Stone • Solus Ceramics 0121 753 0777