Standing tall in-between Portsmouth’s Victoria Park and Commercial Road shopping area is the former Zurich House building. Built in 1973 (designed by the Gollins, Melvin and Ward Partnership) and standing at roughly 60 meters it has been a prominent view point on the city’s skyline for decades.
My first of many trips here was back in 2011. This was the place that got me excited about urban exploration and the challenges the sub-culture presents to a photographer. A couple of friends of mine, who had been into UE for some time, invited me along on a night time explore here and that began my fascination with this building. The building itself has now been renovated to student accommodation, but at the time each floor was completely stripped. The interior was nothing but dusty floors, broken windows and various items scattered around the interior. The real gem of this building though is the rooftop view and trip up to it.
THE WAY IN
The way in involved a climb up and over the security fencing using a corner a-frame to weave through the barbed wire (which later turned into razor wire). Originally there was a section of old fencing that we used as a ladder which was eventually destroyed, so we ended up climbing up the mesh fencing separating the car park from the adjacent park. Originally there were multiple ways in, but these were slowly closed up. The final method involved a crawl in through an air vent. This whitling down of entry points felt like a box ticking exercise by the company responsible for site management as it never really did the job of stopping people gaining access.
Floor By Floor
After you dust yourself off and start the climb up the internal stairways you are met with floor after floor of curving nothingness intersected by hollowed out lift shafts.
THE STAIRS TO THE ROOF
14 floors of stairs late in the evening is not most peoples idea of fun and if you haven’t packed water you will wish you had. Once you get to the top you walk into a pigeon sanctuary and if you don’t know they are there, as was the case for my first visit, be prepared to change your pants. Once through this part of the building you hit the ladder to the roof which is conveniently accessible through a hole in the wall…..
THE ROOFTOP
The rooftop is a gem. It gives you a better panoramic view of the city than the spinnaker tower and will hopefully cost you less. I shot my first virtual 360 here and it is one of the few times I have hung my camera over a 60 meter drop. One of my initial motivating factors for wanting to try this building was a photograph a friend of mine had taken from the roof looking down onto Stanhope Road. I didn’t own, or want to carry, a boom arm for my tripod so the only way of taking this photograph was to pre-compose and focus the shot then lay on my tripod whilst the timer on my camera counted down. The exposure time was also a bit of a guess. I ended up bringing a cable release for future trips which made this type of shot a little easier.
The 111 photo photograph
The first time I explored this site in winter I didn’t take gloves. So after nearly freezing my fingers off gloves became a part of my standard kit. Bike gloves were the most suitable for warmth/protection. Winter gloves are too chunky and don’t offer the same degree of grip and protection. Bike gloves are made from tough material with grip pads I found protected my skin from sharp edges.
The rooftop was one of those few places of odd peacefulness in the city despite the drunken chaos below. You can spend a lot of time on the roof photographing every last little thing in view. Each visit in for me lasted several hours and because the site was repeatable (like the Odeon Cinema in North End) I kept finding new ideas to photograph. Each time I went back there was always something else to document.
The image below is a 111 photograph 15668 pixel wide stitched panorama of Portsmouth & Southsea train station and Portsmouth Guildhall. Shot using an old Nikon 50mm lens and stitched using PTGui.
4 Comments
Hi,
I used to work here back in 2001, I think. Crappy temp job.
Out of Interest, why Tokyomagic? You are from Pompey, like me,. although I currently live in Japan (as you can see from the poor photos on my Japan urbex blog, http://www.abandonednihon.wordpress.com).
Why tokyomagic? why not :0). I was looking for a weird music animation and I thought it was called tokyomagic. Couldnt find it, liked the name so I just went with that. :0)
I have recently treturned to live and work in Portsmouth after living in Southsea during the late 70,s – the Zurich building with its dark glass and curving facade always impressed me and it’s great to see it coming back into use again – it’s a shame nothing has changed much for the Commercial Rd area – a bit of imagination and collective drive from the council could turn this into a art led centre ( forget about big stores and shopping centres) have a look at what’s happening at the Heidelberg project in Detroit for inspiration.Love your photos and stay safe when working at height- ps I say that as I work in the ariel work platform business – highest truck we hire goes to 70m
Hi James,
Thanks for the kind words, I always remain safe when doing stupid things at heights for reasons unknown. I have some experience with rope climbing, plus I always weigh up the cost/benefit of doing a risky explore that involves height.
I think the building is set to be demolished. During the many trips in I did look at a lot of the supporting columns and they were starting to degrade significantly. I think one of the plans submitted a while ago was to demolish the building and build one, maybe two, hotels on the site which is a shame but understandable as its probably cheaper to bring the building down than restore it. For me its comparable to the Tricorn, something that could have been outstanding but ended up being very poor because of cost orientated purchasing and a lack of motivation to turn it into something iconic. Is the car park there now any more or less functional and visually appealing than the monster that came before it?
As for Commercial Road, and like many things in the city, if some drive and passion was put behind developing it it could be fantastic but I simply think the demand is not there. It is all about collecting tax revenues and income streams for the council for which I do not blame them in this time of austerity (it must be a hard hard job trying to balance the books at the council). The artistic culture of the city has always been in Southsea and I think it works beautifully in that area. You also have the Aspex Gallery in Gunwharf.