Greater London House

You are standing in front of Greater London House, a building that was once a temple to the cigarette. When it opened in 1928, it functioned as the factory for the Carreras Tobacco Company. To celebrate the grand opening, the company dumped tons of sand on the pavement to mimic the Egyptian desert, staged a chariot race along the road, and featured actors dressed in ancient Egyptian garb to greet visitors. The building’s design was a direct result of the global obsession with Egyptology that exploded following the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb just six years earlier.