The BBC's new Broadcasting House – in pictures

The view of the building – designed by architect Sheppard Robson – from Portland Place. Over the last 10 years or so, amid rising controversy, the BBC has spent £1.04bn refurbishing and extending its ocean-liner-like HQ Photograph: Simon Kennedy

The aim of this eye-popping expenditure is to bring TV, radio and online operations together, increasing efficiency while reducing costs, by getting rid of a plethora of properties across town Photograph: Simon Kennedy

In 2013, some 5,000 journalists, programme-makers, managers and other staff will be shipped here from historic BBC buildings elsewhere, including Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush and Bush House in Aldwych, home of the World Service Photograph: Simon Kennedy

The overall feeling is of a sleek corporate HQ, but one with a huge technical plant set within, where things – in this case programmes – are made Photograph: Hufton & Crow

The project has quite a history. It had been mooted when John Birt was the BBC's director general in the 1990s, but finally took shape in 2002, after a much-heralded architectural competition when Greg Dyke was at the helm Photograph: Hufton & Crow

Since then, Mark Thompson has taken over, while the original architects – MacCormac Jamieson Prichard (MJP), a medium-sized practice best known for high-quality designs for colleges – were replaced in 2005 by Sheppard Robson, an experienced corporate giant Photograph: Hufton & Crow

The News Room may take up most of the basement and ground floor of the main wing, but it is a surprisingly bright space Photograph: Hufton & Crow

With its vast pillars, spiralling staircases, and towering lift shafts painted red and orange, this cavernous, boldly modern space seems more like a submarine dock, the sort of place you might expect a James Bond shoot-out to take place, rather than somewhere for Huw Edwards to calmly read the news Photograph: Hufton & Crow

Tiers of glazed offices surround it from great heights, some floors reached by balletic spiral stairs crafted in oak, glass and steel Photograph: Hufton & Crow

Because the public pays for the BBC, the new Broadcasting House has been made accessible, in no uncertain manner. Not only will the public be able to gaze into the News Room, they will also be able to attend concerts, and see an ambitious collection of artworks incorporated into the buildings Photograph: Hufton & Crow