Kestrel House, London

Name: Kestrel House, London
Brand: Spaceplay
SKU: SP_MINI_KHL
Price: 50.00 GBP
Availability: InStock

£50.00

Solid Cast-Concrete Miniature Model
Size: 8.5cm high, 6cm wide, 4.5cm deep
Scale: 1:1000 (approx)

BUY TWO OR MORE MODELS AND GET 15% OFF

Hold it at eye level and count the windows, floor after floor, the grid that filled an album cover. City Road after dark, and a story behind every window.

Made to order and shipped within 30 days

Designed and made in my UK studio

Comes gift-boxed for the perfect concrete gift

Express processing available for UK orders

Shipping

All Spaceplay models are made to order and are usually made and posted within 30 days.

All orders are sent using a tracked postal service, and you’ll receive tracking details once your model has been posted.

UK orders usually arrive within 3 working days after posting. International orders usually arrive within 8 working days after posting, although customs and local postal services can sometimes cause delays.

If you need your order for a specific date, please let me know before ordering and I’ll do my best to help.

UK customers can also select Express Shipping at checkout to have their model made and posted within 8 days.

Returns

You can return unused and undamaged items within 30 days of delivery for a refund, excluding return postage costs.

If your model arrives damaged, faulty, or incorrect, please email me within 14 days of delivery with your order number and photos of the issue. I’ll arrange a free replacement to be made and posted to you.

For EU orders Click Here

Building Information

Location: City Road, Islington, London EC1
Architect: Unknown
Completed: 1968
Status: Residential tower block [confirm]

Brief Overview:
Kestrel House is a 1960s council tower block on City Road, between Angel and Old Street. In 1995 the German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg photographed it at night from the 16th floor of a high-rise opposite, capturing a grid of lit and unlit windows for her series London: A Modern Project. The image, Towering Inferno, became the cover of The Streets’ debut album Original Pirate Material in March 2002, and an ordinary London block became a cover a generation still recognises.

Making my concrete model

Some buildings become famous without anyone ever learning their name. Kestrel House is an ordinary council tower on City Road, between Angel and Old Street. In 1995 the photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg photographed it at night from a high-rise opposite: a grid of windows, some lit, some dark, some with the curtains drawn. Seven years later that photograph became the cover of The Streets’ Original Pirate Material, and a block most Londoners walked past without a second look ended up on record shelves and bedroom walls across the country.

Now it’s here. A London tower block that became a soundtrack, cast small enough to keep. Made for the people who had that album on repeat, the ones who grew up in blocks just like it, and anyone who knows the most ordinary buildings often carry the most life.

Kestrel House, London

Most people know this building without knowing its name. This Kestrel House miniature concrete model recreates the City Road tower block whose night-time windows became the cover of The Streets’ Original Pirate Material in 2002. It’s a piece of everyday London Brutalism: a council block of stacked flats, lit window by window, that became an image a generation still recognises. Small enough for a desk, a record shelf or the space beside the turntable, this miniature concrete building makes a gift for a music fan, a Londoner who has moved away, or anyone drawn to post-war Brutalist architecture. Each concrete model of Kestrel House is hand-poured, finished on a laser-etched cork base and gift-boxed, with the weight and texture of real cast concrete.