Five miles out of London on the Western Avenue

When I was at secondary school we did our sports at some playing fields on the western outskirts of London called Warren Farm. Every week the school buses would drive us out of town down the Western Avenue (aka the A40) and go past the Art Deco magnificence of the Hoover factory in Perivale. Teenage boys aren't exactly reknowned for their alertness to architectural beauty but the sight of it was such a marvel it made me forget just for a moment that I was on my way to being terrorized by sadistic PE teachers. The snow white concrete and grand, sweeping facade made it stand out like a jewel in a traffic-choked, industrialized area that had seen better days.


It was built in 1932 and designed by the architects Wallis, Gilbert & Partners. That such artistry went into the design of a factory is an example of the optimism of the modernist era, with the then-new Western Avenue a vibrant symbol of an expanding city and an increasingly motorized society. Buildings like this were monuments to faith in a new machine age which would lift mankind from the drudgery of the past. That era has long gone of course, today the Hoover building is home to a Tesco supermarket which tells you plenty about how western nations have gone from producing things to consuming them. But it could have suffered a worse fate, it might have been demolished like the nearby and equally-beautiful Firestone factory was in 1980.


I used to think Elvis Costello's song "Hoover Factory" was really about something else - you know, the usual rock song things: women, drugs, masturbation etc. – but it actually is about the Hoover building. Costello grew up in west London (Kensington and then Twickenham) so may have childhood memories of his own related to the building. It's a very pretty, short, impressionistic song with lots of layers and vocal overdubbing that belies the fact that Elvis recorded the whole thing on his own in a cheap studio in Shepherd's Bush. Songs about modern architecture are the sort if thing you'd expect from Brian Eno and Elvis seems to think it's all a bit inconsequential in the grand scheme of things when he sings "it's not a matter of life or death". Maybe it isn't, but I wouldn't want to live in a world without beautiful buildings like the Hoover factory.

Download: Hoover Factory - Elvis Costello (mp3)
Buy: "Art Deco London" (book)
Buy: "Leadville: A Biography of the A40" (book)

This was the b-side of his 1980 single "Clubland" and is now available as an extra on the reissue of "Get Happy" (which is a little odd as "Clubland" was off his "Trust" album.) But if you want to be really smart, hunt down a copy of "Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers" instead.