Charing Cross station, designed by Sir Terry Farrell [Penn Station_CC BY-SA 3.0]

AN “innovative” and “heroic” waterfront landmark that was a breakthrough building for the legendary architect Sir Terry Farrell has been listed, throwing a major redevelopment scheme into disarray.

Charing Cross station has been granted a Grade II-listing following representations from The Twentieth Century Society that aims to protect post-First World War heritage buildings.

The society says the listing has “implications” for an application from Bridgemont Real Estate Partners to alter the building and build a new extension to a Villiers Street block, along with connected refurbishments, to which it “strongly objects”.

In an objection lodged yesterday, Thursday, the society’s Laura Mark said: “The Villiers Street block is key to Farrell’s approach as an urbanist and shows his dynamism as an urban designer. He intentionally broke down the building’s massing at street level here and used a series of postmodern motifs such as the circular cut-outs to add interest to the façade.

“The proposals will replace Farrell’s Villiers Street block with a new extension building which is twice the height of the original building, is fully glazed and is articulated with terracotta fins.

“The brick arches at ground level proposed by Hopkins are stated to ‘recall the original 19th-century railway architecture’. The brick arches are more akin to a below station environment and do not feel appropriate to the street scale of Villiers Street.

Sir Terry Farrell [Alan Williams_CC BY 3.]

“It is of the society’s opinion that the proposed approach to Villiers Street is wholly inappropriate, both in materiality and scale, and will lose the important postmodern character of the building and the approach to the urban grain of Villiers Street which is key to its significance along this façade.”

The objection added: “In light of the Grade II-listing and the significant weight given to the south façade, we would advise that the applicants reconsider their approach.”

Historic England has said that the main station building has been listed for its architectural merit and as a key work of Terry Farrell executed in his “characteristically creative postmodern mode”.

The Bridgemont proposals, designed by Hopkins, would retain around 90 per cent of its existing structure including most of its façade, while improving its energy efficiency and operational carbon usage.

The developer has previously said the refurbishment would retain the “distinctive character and design intent” of the 15-storey block built in 1991.

The scheme was due to be considered by Westminster Council’s planning committee before the end of the year.

The DCMS, department for culture, media and sport, has granted listing for the 1980s building, called 1 Embankment Place, after a recommendation from Historic England, which describes the it as “one of the most prominent, architecturally ambitious schemes ever designed by Farrell” while praising the “heroic formal imagery of its stepped arches and towers, balanced with the pattern, texture and modelling which brings human scale”.

Sir Terry died last year aged 87.