11/11/2018 The Herman Miller Factory, Non Civil Parish - 1415261 | Historic England

The Herman Miller Factory

1 contribution

Overview
Heritage Category: Listed Building

Grade: II

List Entry Number: 1415261

Date first listed: 16-Aug-2013

Statutory Address: Herman Miller Ltd, Locksbrook Road, Bath, BA1 3EL

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Location
Statutory Address: Herman Miller Ltd, Locksbrook Road, Bath, BA1 3EL

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District: Bath and North East Somerset (Unitary Authority)

Parish: Non Civil Parish

National Grid Reference: ST7311564889

Summary
A factory built in 1976-7 to a design by Nicholas Grimshaw of Farrell & Grimshaw Architects, for
the American furniture company Herman Miller Inc.

Reasons for Designation

The Herman Miller Factory in Bath built in 1976-7 to designs by Nicholas Grimshaw of Farrell &
Grimshaw Architects for the American furniture company Herman Miller Inc., is listed at Grade
II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: it is an important early work by one of Britain’s foremost contemporary

architects, and expresses many of the key features of the British High Tech Movement; *
Technological interest: it is a very good example of an industrial building of the 1970s, built for
a forward thinking client that demanded a fully flexible building which promotes the
democracy and equality of their workplace and which reflected the avant-garde design

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solutions of the company’s furniture products; * Historic interest: it is an important reminder

of the history and development of furniture design and manufacturing in Bath, and in
particular the prominent role this industry had in the production of influential and in some
cases iconic, modern C20 furniture pieces; * Group value: it forms an apposite grouping with
the Grade II listed Bath Cabinet Makers Factory, situated on the other side of the river, which
was bought by Herman Miller in the early 1970s.

History
The factory in Bath was built for Herman Miller Inc, an American o ice furniture making
company, in 1976-7, to a design by Farrell & Grimshaw Architects. Nicholas Grimshaw, assisted
by Je Scherer, was the lead architect. Peter Brett Associates were responsible for the
structural engineering.

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw CBE (born 1939) is generally perceived to be one of the most
prominent contemporary architects in England, specialising in industrial and commercial
buildings. His work is sometimes referred to as expressing the characteristics of the so-called
High Tech movement, also known as Late Modernism or Structural Expressionism. His most
recent work includes London's Waterloo International Railway Station and the Eden Project in
Cornwall. Throughout his life Grimshaw expressed a great interest in engineering (his father
was an aircra engineer and his great grandfather was a pioneering civil engineer). He was
educated at Wellington College, and from 1959 to 1962 he studied at the Edinburgh College of
Art, before winning a scholarship to attend the Architectural Association School of
Architecture in London. He won further scholarships to travel to Sweden in 1963 and the
United States in 1964. In 1965 he graduated from the Architectural Association with an
honours diploma, and having entered into a partnership with Terry Farrell, he joined the Royal
Institute of British Architects two years later in 1967. Since 1980 he has his own firm, Nicholas
Grimshaw & Partners. In late 2004, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw was elected as president of the
Royal Academy of Arts.

The furniture making company, Herman Miller Inc, was founded in 1905 as the Star Furniture
Company in Zeeland, Michigan, by Dirk Jan de Pree, a devout Christian. In 1923 de Pree’s
father-in-law, Herman Miller, became his business partner and the company was renamed the
Herman Miller Furniture Company (from 1960 known as Herman Miller Inc). Until 1930 the
company produced traditional wooden furniture but from 1933, a er the appointment of the
designer Gilbert Rohde, a line of modern o ice furniture was introduced. A er Rohde's death
in 1944, the architect George Nelson became Director of Design and a number of talented

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designers were recruited, including Isamu Noguchi, Charles and Ray Eames and Robert
Propst, resulting in the production of some of the most iconic pieces of modern furniture. In
1961 the CEO Dirk Jan de Pree was succeeded by his son Hugh de Pree. Under his leadership
the Herman Miller Research Division in Ann Arbor, Michigan was set up. Here the company’s
famous 'Action O ice' line was developed, best known for the open plan o ice with mobile
division panels which revolutionized the o ice environment from the mid-1970s. It was during
this period that the company established factories and o ices all over the world, including in
Bath, England, where the Action O ice system was produced. A er the building of their factory
in Bath, Herman Miller Inc. continued to work with Grimshaw, and in 1980, shortly a er setting
up his own architectural practice, he designed their Distribution Centre in Chippenham,
Wiltshire (a larger version of the Bath building).

Farrell & Grimshaw won the limited competition to design the Bath Factory in 1975. Other
entrants included Jim Stirling, Foster Associates and BDP Arup Associates. Max de Pree, the
Managing Director, gave an unusually short brief, described by Grimshaw in 1995 as
'practically a poem' (Amery, p.74):

It is our goal to create an environment that: Encourages an open community and fortuitous
encounter Welcomes all Is kind to the user Changes with grace Is person-scaled Is subservient
to human activity Forgives mistakes in planning Enables this community (in the sense that an
environment can) to continually reach forward it potential Is a contribution to the landscape
as an aesthetic and human value Meets the needs we can perceive Is open to surprise Is
comfortable with conflict Has flexibility, is non-precious and non-monumental.

In our planning we should know that: Our needs will change The scale of the operation will
change Things about us will change We will change.

Grimshaw had great empathy with Herman Miller Inc, and, as one of the first developers of
open-plan o ice furniture systems, he felt they were almost ahead of him in terms of their
concept of quality, flexibility and change. Flexibility became the main driver for the design ‘as
the balance of o ice, manufacturing storage and amenity may need to shi at any given time,
and possibly for more than one client’ (Architects Journal, March 1978)

The chosen site for the building in Bath was a brown-field site on the north bank of the River
Avon, opposite the existing Herman Miller Factory which had been built 10 years earlier (1966-
7) to a design by Brian Henderson of YRM Architects for Bath Cabinet Makers (listed at Grade
II), which would be used as o ices. As indicated on the architectural drawings of the new

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factory by Farrell & Grimshaw (held in the V&A Archive), the structure of the rectangular
building was formed by a 10 x 20 m steel grid that could be clad in fibre-glass panels, tinted
glass or louvered glass panels. The cladding frame divided the elevation into a series of bays
capable of taking any 6mm sheet material. As such the panelling was interchangeable to allow
maximum flexibility. Additionally, the location of indent bays in the frame (for entrances or
sitting-out), could be shi ed, eliminated or increased to meet the requirements of changed
(future) use of the building (Architects’ Journal, 1978, p 401). For the factory in Bath, cream
coloured panels were used so the building would fit in with the pre-dominantly Bath stone
buildings of the city. The cladding system had first been used by Grimshaw in 1975, at the
headquarters for the music publishing firm Editions van de Velde in Tours, France, which
shows striking similarities with the factory in Bath. Inside the Bath factory, in order to
minimise disturbance to production, all service runs were planned on the roof, accessible via
catwalks, and to allow for internal reorganisation on the factory floor, mobile toilet units were
introduced which could be placed in 16 di erent locations.

On completion of the ‘Action Factory’ in Bath, as it was called by Grimshaw, he stated that
‘architects in the future must design their buildings so that they can easily be changed, either
by themselves or others’ (Architects Journal, 1 March 1978). Since then, this flexible and
standardised system, in being used successfully by Grimshaw for most of his subsequent
industrial buildings in England, has become his trademark. From the early 1980s he
experimented with di erent materials, colours and relief, further developing the complexities
of the overall system, such as for example at the Factory Units, Queens Drive, Nottingham
(1980).

The factory in Bath was extensively praised in the architectural press and won a number of
awards, including the Principal Financial Times Industrial Architecture Award (1977), the
Business & Industry Award (1977), the Principal RIBA Award (1978), the Principal Structural
Steel Award (1978), and the Civic Trust Award (1978). It was claimed that the building’s cream
and brown cladding harmonised well with the Bath stone of the city, and the landscaping of
the site resulting in a leisure space on the river bank with fixed seating, which could be used by
both workers and the public, was commended too. Furthermore, the building was perceived
to express important architectural innovations in its design, which some believed reflected the
recommendations made in the much debated Bullock Report of 1977 (Building Design, 1977
and Architects’ Journal 1978). The Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Industrial
Democracy, chaired by Alan Bullock, proposed a form of worker participation or workers’
control believed to solve the chronic industrial disputes and enhancement of employee
participation.

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Details
A factory built in 1976-7 to a design by Nicholas Grimshaw of Farrell & Grimshaw Architects, for
the American furniture company Herman Miller Inc.

MATERIALS: the building consists of a six-metre high steel structure using primary and
secondary beams with columns on a 10m by 20m grid gloss painted in yellow. It has an
aluminium cladding frame holding two rows of 6mm thick vertically set rectangular,
interchangeable panels of cream painted fibre glass (glass reinforced panels, GRP) moulded
with a slightly raised profile, brown tinted glass windows, louvres, and doors. The fascia to the
roof is also clad in cream GRP with curved edges. The GRP panels were repainted, again in
cream, in the early 1990s.

PLAN: single storey open plan with o ices situated on an enclosed L-shaped mezzanine floor
situated in the south-west corner of the factory, with a smaller one in the north-east corner of
the building. Both were inserted in the early 1990s and further extended in the early 2000's.

EXTERIOR: The visitor’s entrance to the factory is situated in the three-bay wide west elevation,
which is highlighted by a full height indentation with curved corners, as are those to the entire
building. The south elevation facing the River Avon is currently clad in glass, louvres and GRP
panels, but until the late 1980s this was broken up by two full height indentations functioning
as external break areas. As shown on photographs and on the architectural drawings, when
panels are removed in order to create alcoves in any part of the south elevation, one of the
yellow columns (to the le ) and part of the ceiling beam of the steel structure become
exposed. The north elevation along Locksbrook Road is currently also clad in glass, louvres
and GRP panels. To the le and right are goods entrances, and until the late 1980s there was a
central indentation with a sta entrance, which a er it fell out of use was closed o using the
flexible panel system. The east elevation contains three central loading bays set at an angle.
To the right, the GRP panels that form the cladding are pierced to accommodate the pipes of a
large dust extracting plant installed in the later C20 (not of special interest).

INTERIOR: the factory has a plain interior with concrete floors, with an exposed steel roof
structure painted in bright yellow. Hanging from the ceiling beams is a central steel catwalk
painted in blue, allowing access to the services that continue to be attached to the roof, some
now modernised. Extensive ducting and extraction points have been installed which link to
the external dust extraction plant. The majority of the original aluminium lampshades
hanging from the ceiling beams survive. The former toilet pods, which could be moved and

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plumbed into services at a number of points across the manufacturing floor were replaced
with permanent toilet facilities in the early 1990s when the mezzanine floors were inserted,
and none of these survive.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: six of the ten original circular outdoor tables and stools along the
south elevation survive (repaired in places), each fixed on a concrete paved circular base.

Sources
Books and journals
Amery, C, Architecture, Industry and Innovation. The Early Work of Nicholas Grimshaw &
Partners, (1995), 74-87
Grimshaw, Nicholas, Partners Ltd, , Amery, Colin , Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners Book 1
Product, (1988), 20-21
Grimshaw, Nicholas, Partners Ltd, , Amery, Colin , Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners Book 2
Process, (1988), 38-39
'The Architects' Journal' in Financial Times Industrial Awards 1977, (2 November 1977), 844-
845
'The Architects' Journal' in Furniture Factory, , Vol. 167, (1 March 1978), 394-407
'The Architect, vol 7' in Eight Hundred Entries On, , Vol. 7, (1977), 12-13
Astragal, , 'The Architects' Journal' in Astragal - The Miller's tale, (2 November 1977), 839
Bandini, M, 'Building Design' in A Question Of Interpretation, (8 October 1993), 12-13
Goldstein, B, 'Progressive Architecture' in Trim Tech, (July 1978), 46-49
Reid, J, 'RIBA Journal' in Awards South West - Herman Miller Factory, Bath, (August 1978), 321
Other
Architectural model for the Herman Miller Factory, in plywood, plastic and paper, made by
Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners Ltd in 1976, held in the V&A Collections ref: E.3162-2004 ,
Contextual notes on High Tech and the Herman Miller Factory prepared by an English Heritage
historian in the Heritage Protection Department.,
Farrell and Grimshaw Partnership Ltd, Plans and Elevation Drawings for the Herman Miller
Factory, Bath, dated 1975/76, held in the V&A Collections, London, ref: E.3087-2004, E.3088-
2004 and E 3090-2004.,
Jones, Lang LaSalle, Response to Consultation Report by English Heritage in respect of The
Herman Miller Factory, Locksbrook Road, Bath, BA1 3EL, 8 July 2013,

Legal

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This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

End of o icial listing

© Historic England 2018

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