Bonhams

Bonhams has traded from 101 New Bond Street since 1793. Its current headquarters, a full rebuild completed in 2013 by architects Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, reads as more theatre than saleroom: a narrow street entrance gives way to an atrium rising the full height of the building, arriving at a ground-floor saleroom sealed behind a sliding glass wall. It is 235 square metres, double height, its walls carpeted in a deep imperial purple built for hanging pictures — the floors are rated to take the heaviest sculpture, the ceiling to suspend a car.

Two further salerooms sit above in a vertical stack, each double height, day-lit through a bank of glazed lift shafts, and fitted with its own glass-walled skybox for bidders who prefer to watch from above. A third private gallery, the mezzanine boardroom suspended over the reception desk, offers the same vantage on a smaller scale.

None of it is dressed for parties by default; the calendar belongs to Bonhams' own sales and exhibition previews. But the building was designed with events in mind, and its galleries have hosted receptions and private views alongside the rostrum. There is no published rate card or hire microsite: access runs through the house directly, by enquiry.