What was the Firestone Building?
The Firestone Building was the London headquarters and factory of the Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company, an offshoot of the American tyre giant based in Akron, Ohio, standing on the Great West Road in Brentford — a stretch of arterial road so densely lined with gleaming Art Deco factories it became known as the "Golden Mile." Designed by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, reportedly in just three weeks and built in eighteen, it opened in 1928–29, its whole composition — not just its decorative details — modelled loosely on an Egyptian temple front.
The factory closed in February 1980, and the site was sold to the property developer Trafalgar House. Before the month was out, the building's most distinctive features had been deliberately destroyed to prevent it being legally protected — a demolition now remembered as one of the most notorious episodes in the history of British architectural conservation.
Facts panel
Former factory (demolished), Great West Road, Brentford, London.
- Architects: Wallis, Gilbert & Partners
- Built for: Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company
- Design and construction: Designed in three weeks, built in eighteen
- Completed: 1928–29
- Address: Great West Road, Brentford, London
- Materials: White faience-tiled facade, reinforced concrete frame, bronze lamp standards
- Architectural style: Art Deco, with Egyptian-influenced ornament
- Demolished: 23 August 1980 (August Bank Holiday weekend)
- What survives: The entrance gates, gate piers, and railings, Grade II listed
Architects: Wallis, Gilbert & Partners
Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, led by chief designer Thomas Wallis, were the pre-eminent designers of Britain's interwar factory architecture, responsible for close to a quarter of all the industrial buildings surveyed in one review of interwar London factories. Alongside the Firestone Building, the firm designed the Hoover Building in Perivale, the Wrigley's factory in Wembley, Huntley & Palmer's in Reading, Victoria Coach Station, the Glaxo building in Greenford, Champion Spark Plugs in Feltham, and Abbey Road Studios. Thomas Wallis himself reportedly regarded his factories as fundamentally temporary — part of the manufacturing process rather than monuments intended to last — a view the Firestone Building's fate would, tragically, bear out.
Architectural character: an Egyptian temple for tyres
The Firestone Building presented a gleaming white, symmetrical facade to the Great West Road, faced in glazed faience tiles and centred on a stepped, temple-like tower and pediment flanked by tall white pillars. Ribbon windows ran along its lower storeys, and bronze lamp standards, reeded and finished with chevron-ornamented lanterns, lined its entrance approach. According to the Twentieth Century Society, the design of the whole building — not merely its facade — was conceived around the form of an Egyptian temple, part of the same wave of Egyptomania that had inspired London's Carreras Black Cat Factory in the same period.
Our architectural sculpture focuses on the central entrance bay — the tower, pediment, and flanking pillars that formed the building's most photographed feature — rather than the building's full length along the Great West Road.
History: demolished in a weekend
Firestone closed its Brentford factory in February 1980, at a cost of 1,500 jobs, and sold the site to the property developer Trafalgar House, then run by Lord Victor Matthews and Nigel Broakes. Contracts were exchanged on Friday 22 August 1980. That same week, an inspector from the Department of the Environment had visited the building and recommended it for emergency "spot-listing" — a procedure that would have legally protected it from demolition. No sufficiently senior civil servant could be found to sign the listing papers before the Bank Holiday weekend began.
On Saturday 23 August, Lord Matthews ordered demolition crews onto the site. Within a day, the building's defining features — the ceramic tiles around the entrance, the white pillars, the pediment above, and the bronze lamp standards — had been destroyed, rendering the listing recommendation moot before it could ever be signed. The act caused immediate public outrage and became the first major campaign for the recently founded Thirties Society, the forerunner of today's Twentieth Century Society. In its aftermath, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, ordered an accelerated survey of interwar buildings; within a year, the Historic Buildings Committee had recommended some 150 buildings from the period for listing. Only the site's entrance gates, gate piers, and railings survived; they are Grade II listed today, the sole physical remnant of one of Britain's finest Art Deco factories.
Cultural significance
The Firestone Building's destruction is one of the pivotal moments in modern British conservation history — not because of what was built, but because of what its loss made possible. The public anger it provoked directly strengthened the case for protecting Britain's interwar architecture, accelerating the listing of buildings that might otherwise have followed it into demolition, and helping to establish the young Thirties Society as a serious force in architectural preservation. For a building that survived barely fifty years, the Firestone Building's influence on how Britain protects its twentieth-century heritage has proved considerably more lasting than the building itself.
The model-maker's lens
- Focus — the central entrance bay: the stepped tower, pediment, and flanking pillars that were the building's most recognisable and most photographed feature.
- Detail — the etched-metal detailing picks out the fine lines of the pillars and ribbon windows against the plaster, echoing the crisp geometry of the original faience.
- How it reads at small scale — very well; the strong central massing and symmetry of the entrance translate directly into a compact, sculptural object, even though the building itself no longer exists to be photographed.
- How to display — alongside our other Art Deco factory models — the Hoover Building, Battersea Power Station — as part of a collection of Britain's great interwar industrial architecture, including some, like this one, that survive only in memory and in models.
- How we made it — we created the CAD model from historic photographs, since the building itself was demolished in 1980; 3D printed the master pattern, created a single simple box mould, cast in pigmented white plaster and added etched metal detailing.
View the Firestone Building architectural model
What remains today
The Firestone Building itself is gone, its site long since redeveloped for retail and office use. The one tangible link to the original factory stands where it always did: the entrance gates, gate piers, and railings on the Great West Road, Grade II listed and preserved as a quiet, poignant reminder of the building they once led into.
Frequently asked questions about the Firestone Building
Who designed the Firestone Building?
It was designed by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, the leading British designers of interwar factory architecture, reportedly completing the design in just three weeks.
When was the Firestone Building built, and does it still exist?
It was built in 1928–29, but it no longer exists. It was demolished on 23 August 1980, during the August Bank Holiday weekend, before a legal listing order could be signed to protect it.
Why was the Firestone Building demolished?
Its owner, the developer Trafalgar House, ordered its demolition after learning that the Department of the Environment intended to grant the building emergency "spot-listed" protection. No official was available to sign the listing paperwork before the Bank Holiday weekend, and the building's key features were destroyed before it could take effect.
Does anything of the Firestone Building survive?
Yes. The entrance gates, gate piers, and railings survive on the Great West Road and are Grade II listed — the only physical remnant of the original factory.
Why does Chisel & Mouse make a model of a building that no longer exists?
Because some of the most significant buildings in architectural history survive only in photographs, and we believe they're worth preserving in another form. Our Firestone Building model was created from historic photographs of the original factory, in the same way we model buildings that are still standing today.
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