Just down the road was the Imperial Institute [1], built in the 1880s. It was demolished in 1957 and now it looks like this [2] and this [3].

[1]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial_Institute.j...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sherfield_Building_over_Q...

[3]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial_College_Bus...