Selfridges
Front piece as seen from Oxford Street
General information
Status	Open, in use
Type	Department store
Architectural style	Beaux-Arts with Ionic columns
Address	Oxford Street, City of Westminster
Town or city	London
Country	England
Coordinates	51°30′51.04″N 0°9′9.46″W / 51.5141778°N 0.1526278°W / 51.5141778; -0.1526278
Current tenants	Selfridges
Opened	15 March, 1909
Cost	£400,000
Client	Harry Gordon Selfridge
Owner	Galen Weston and family
Technical details
Structural system	Steel frame
Floor count	9 (1xRoof terrace; 5xcustomer above ground; 1xcustomer basement; 2xbasement storage)
Floor area	540,000 square feet (50,000 m2) of selling space
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Daniel Burnham
Other designers	Francis Swales, R. Frank Atkinson, Thomas Smith Tait, Gilbert Bayes
Designations	Grade II Listed

Selfridges, Oxford Street is a GradeII listed retail premises, located in Oxford Street, London, England. It was designed by Daniel Burnham for Harry Gordon Selfridge, and opened in 1909. Today it is a listed building, is the second largest shop in the UK (after Harrods),^[1] and still the headquaters of Selfridge & Co. department stores.

In 1906, Harry Gordon Selfridge travelled to England on holiday with his wife, Rose. Unimpressed with the quality of existing British retaillers, he noticed that the large stores in London had not adopted the latest selling ideas that were being used in the United States. Selfridge decided to invest £400,000 in building his own department store in what was then the unfashionable western end of Oxford Street.

The building was designed by American architect Daniel Burnham, who also crafted Marshall Field's main store in his home town of Chicago, and the Flatiron Building in New York. American architect Francis Swales worked on decorative details, aided by British architects R. Frank Atkinson and Thomas Smith Tait.^[2][3] The distinctive polychrome sculpture above the Oxford Street entrance is the work of British sculptor Gilbert Bayes. The design of the store set the benchmark for Selfridge stores being known for architectural excellence, and are hence today a tourist destinations in their own right.

The building was an early example in the UK of the use of a steel frame, which is hidden behind the Ionic columns, to creat a facade which present a visually uniform, classical, Beaux-Arts appearance.^[4] The original design is five stories high with three basement levels and a roof terrace, originally laid out to accommodate 100 departments. Opended on 15 March 1909,^[1] the store was built in phases, the first phase consisting only of the nine-and-a-half bays closest to the Duke Street corner.^[5] The main entrance and all of the bays to its left were added some 18 years after the store first opened, using a modified construction system.^[4] A scheme to erect a massive tower above the store post-World War 1 was never carried out. Harry Selfridge also proposed a subway link to Bond Street station, and renaming it "Selfridges"; however, contemporary opposition squashed the idea.

There are two levels of basement beneath the lower-ground shop floor: the ‘sub’ and the ‘sub-sub’. Combined, these descend 60 metres (200 ft) below street level. These two areas are then split into two more areas: the dry sub and sub-sub, and their "wet" equivalents. The wet area is beneath the original nine-and-a-half bays closest to the Duke Street corner of the 1909 building. The "dry" is under the rear of the building, known as the SWOD after the surounding four streets - Somerset, Wigmore, Orchard and Duke – that once enclosed it. During World War 2 after the entry of the United States into the conflict, from 1942 the dry sub-sub SWOD was used by the United States Army. The building had one of the only secure telex lines, was safe from bombing, and was close to the US Embassy on Grosvenor Square. Initially used by General Eisenhower, the commander of SHAEF, it later housed 50 soldiers from the 805th Signal Service Company of the US Army Signal Corps, who installed a SIGSALY code-scrambling device connected to a similar terminal in the Pentagon building. The first conference took place on the 15 July 1943. Initial visitors included Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to enable secure comunications with the President of the United States, although later extensions were installed to both 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet War Rooms.^[6] Rumours persist of a tunnel built from Selfridges to the embassy so that personnel could move between the two in safety, with interrogation cells for prisoners hewn from the resultant uneven space available.

Today, with 540,000 square feet (50,000 m²) of selling space,^[7] the store is the second largest retail premises in the UK, half as big as Harrods which is at over one million square feet (90,000 m²) of selling space is the biggest department store in Europe.

While restoration work was carried out on the building in 2002,^[4] the scaffold surround was used to carry the largest photographic artwork ever produced, 60ft tall by 900ft long and weighing 2 tons. It showed a gathering of well-known pop and cultural figures of the time.

The new store opened to the public on 15 March 1909, setting new standards for the retailing business.

At that time, women were beginning to enjoy the fruits of emancipation by wandering unescorted around the city of London. A canny marketer, Selfridge promoted the radical notion of shopping for pleasure rather than necessity. The store was extensively promoted through paid advertising. The shop floors were structured so that goods could be made more accessible to customers. There were elegant restaurants with modest prices, a library, reading and writing rooms, special reception rooms for French, German, American and "Colonial" customers, a First Aid Room, and a Silence Room, with soft lights, deep chairs, and double-glazing, all intended to keep customers in the store as long as possible. Staff members were taught to be on hand to assist customers, but not too aggressively, and to sell the merchandise. Oliver Lyttleton observed that, when one called on Selfridge, he would have nothing on his desk except one's letter, smoothed and ironed.^[8]

Selfridge also managed to obtain from the GPO the privilege of having the number "1" as its own phone number, so anybody had to just dial 1 to be connected to Selfridge's operators.

The roof terrace hosted terraced gardens, cafes, a mini golf course and an all-girl gun club. The roof, with its spectacular views across London, was a popular place for strolling after a shopping trip and was often used for fashion shows. During the World War 2 the store was bombed in 1940, 1941 and 1944 causing catastrophic damage. After the devastating bombing of the department store in 1940, Harry vowed never to open the rooftop gardens again.^[9] It reopened again for the first time since in July 2011, for a promotional event staged by Truvia as part of their UK launch.^[10] Bompas & Parr designed an art-instalation publicly accessible rowing lake, which was dyed green.^[11]

A Milne-Shaw seismograph was set up on the Selfridge store’s third floor in 1932, attached to one of the building's main stanchions, unaffected by traffic or shoppers. It recorded the Belgian earthquake of 11 June 1938 which was also felt in London. At the outbreak of war, the seismograph was moved from its original site near the Post Office to another part of the store. In 1947, the seismograph was given to the British Museum.

In 2002, Selfridges was awarded the London Tourism Award for visitors' favourite London store. Selfridges, Oxford Street was named world's best department store in 2010.^[12]

After his wife died in 1918, and his mother in 1922, Harry squandered his fortune. In 1941, Harry left Selfridges.

In 1951 the store was acquired by the Liverpool-based Lewis's chain of department stores, which was in turn taken over in 1965 by the Sears Group owned by Charles Clore.^[13] Expanded under the Sears group to include branches in Oxford, Manchester and Birmingham,^[14] in 2003 the chain was acquired by Canada's Galen Weston for £598 million.^[15]

In 2011, the Weston family bought 388-396 Oxford Street, which is located immediately to the east of the Selfridges building across Duke Street, on which fashion chain French Connection has a lease until 2025.^[16]

In early 2012, Selfridges commissioned Italian architect Renzo Piano (who was responsible for London's The Shard landmark skyscrapper), to work on an extension to the 1909 department store. News Agency CoStar commented that the project could feature a premium hotel as well as office space, or additional shopping departments. In May 2012, a Selfridges representative said:^[17]

Plans incorporate the 1909 landmark building along with adjacent spaces and new architecture within (and above) the urban block. The project is rooted in Selfridges' ambition to remain great for generations to come, by pushing the boundaries of architecture, design and customer experience.

In December 2012, Selfridges acquired the 100,000 square feet (9,300 m²) Nations House office building from Hermes, which is located immediately behind its Oxford Street store in Wigmore Street, for around £130m.^[17]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Selfridges, Oxford Street store.

• Selfridges website