Art Deco 'gem' falls victim to £400m redevelopment

Architectural conservationists are dismayed at the imminent loss of the Art Deco Guinness factory at Park Royal, west London, designed by Alexander Gibb and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, creator of the Bankside power station that is now the Tate Modern art gallery.

The factory is to be demol-ished to make way for a plant, offices, housing and an Underground station – another brick in the wall of Britain's architectural heritage being crushed by the weight of commercial imperative, opponents say.

Although the Guinness factory was a joint architectural project it was essentially Gibb who created the shape of the huge but decoratively restrained Art Deco environment for 1,500 workers who, from 1935, brewed millions of pints of stout a year, infused with milk from cows grazing on fields next to the plant.

The new development, to be completed by 2005, is par for the course. Park Royal's 560 hectares of business parks is Europe's biggest concentration, with more than 1,900 firms, employing 40,000 workers.

The only thing that could stop the demolition is protest, followed by an English Heritage listing, but this is unlikely. The £400m development, by Guinness and London & Regional Properties, will bring 6,000 jobs, generating earnings estimated at £45m in the Brent, Ealing and Hammersmith areas.

The Guinness factory, according to Britain's greatest architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner, was "the one distinguished contribution to the area" and an antidote to "the exuberance of contemporary bypass Art Deco". Len Snow, a former mayor of Brent, said he was upset at the plan. "It would be an appalling loss of an architectural gem," he said.

David Hoy, Guinness's development director said: "I'll shed a tear once the crane comes with the ball. But we believe that what we're putting in its place suits the area in the 21st century."

West London was one of Britain's original hot-spots for in-your-face modernist industrial architecture. None was brasher than the Grade II listed Hoover factory. Pevsner thought the Hoover factory was an "offensive modernist atrocity", but its listing reflects showstopping design. The Guinness factory is only "good". But it must go, and be replaced with buildings unlikely to suggest much more than a Safe Newish World.