The Lord's Media Centre, officially known as the J.P. Morgan Media Centre for sponsorship reasons, is a building at Lord's Cricket Ground

Lord's Cricket Ground

Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...

, London.

History

It was designed by Future Systems

Future Systems

Future Systems was a London-based architectural and design practice, formerly headed by Directors Jan Kaplický and Amanda Levete.Future Systems was founded by Kaplický after working with Denys Lasdun, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, and Richard Rogers...

 and cost about £5 million. The Media Centre, which was built by Pendennis Shipyard from the UK in combination with Centraalstaal

Centraalstaal

Centraalstaal BV is a Dutch company, with headquarters in Groningen, Netherlands.The company was formed in 1972 as an initiative from the shipyards in the north of the Netherlands to start a joint prefabrication plant for the cutting and forming of sheet metal...

 from The Netherlands, was commissioned in time for the 1999 Cricket World Cup

Cricket World Cup

The ICC Cricket World Cup is the premier international championship of men's One Day International cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council , with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a finals tournament which is held every four years...

 and was the first all aluminium, semi-monocoque

Monocoque

Monocoque is a construction technique that supports structural load by using an object's external skin, as opposed to using an internal frame or truss that is then covered with a non-load-bearing skin or coachwork...

 building in the world. It was built and fitted-out in two boatyards and utilises boat-building technology.
The centre stands 15 metres above the ground and its sole support comes from the structure around its two lift shafts – it is approximately the same height as the Pavilion directly opposite it on the other side of the ground. The lower tier of the centre provides accommodation for over 100 journalists and the top tier has radio and television commentary boxes. The Building was awarded the RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture in 1999.

Originally sponsored by NatWest, in 2007 sponsorship was taken over by Investec. Since 31 May 2011, the media centre has been sponsored by J.P Morgan.