Adelaide House

Completed in 1925, Adelaide House next to London Bridge was London's most modern-looking and tallest office block. Its bulk was controversial, particularly as it hid the 17th century Church of St Magnus Martyr behind it. The domineering scale of the building is empahsised in Henry Rushbury's print.

Adelaide House was a combined office and warehouse. Its design, by architect John Burnet, broke away from conventional architecture and looked to American styles. The exterior reflected its internal, steel-framed construction. The building also incorporated other novel American features: central ventilation, an internal mail system and a rooftop golf course.

Rushbury trained at the Birmingham School of Art and, briefly, at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. It was in London that he met the painter Francis Dodd, who introduced him to printmaking.

Here the technique used is drypoint, a printmaking method that involves scratching an image into the surface of a metal plate using a burin, a needle-like instrument. Unlike engraved lines, which are very smooth and hard-edged, drypoint scratching results in a soft, blurry line quality.