Dominating Oldham for most part of the decade was Co-op’s Shopping Giant. It was a great place where you could stock up on your groceries and buy non-food items. It boasted its own Handybank, had a separate chemist opposite the main store and a fast food restaurant – qv Food and Drink section. Cars parked on the roof and at ground level with access via trolley-friendly escalators.
Other delights included Mario’s salon – on Manchester Street underneath the main store, and an ice cream stand by the entrance nearest the Bank Top Tavern.
Nothing, like everything lasts forever – so you became the Mecca Bingo Hall.
Being something of a car park aficionado I couldn’t resist walking up the ramp to take a look around.
To the right is the tower of the Civic Centre, it was designed by Cecil Howitt & Partners, and the topping out ceremony was held on 18 June 1976.
Plans are underway at the Civic Centre, the largest site in the regeneration project, to create a vibrant community providing 838 homes rising up to 15-storeys with mixed-use commercial spaces on the ground floor. This development will integrate seamlessly with the surrounding neighbourhood, particularly the nearby Former Magistrates’ Court site.
The Civic Tower at the edge of the site will be retained and redeveloped as a hotel in a later phase.
A visit to Preston on our Modernist Walkswould not be complete without a visit to Telephone House.
Local enthusiast George Sharples, a chemist by trade who was familiar with telegraph engineering, also had ambitions in this field and successfully applied for a licence to operate from his premises at 7 Fishergate.
His Preston Telephonic Exchange opened a few weeks later, having recruited local businesses who at first were reluctant to move away from the highly efficient telegraph message services and embrace the new technology.
Things progressed quite rapidly after that and by 1886 Sharples had sold his business to the county operators, who in turn were taken over by the National Telephone Company in 1889. Within a year the £9 subscription rate offered by Sharples had increased to £12 – a familiar tale. Within three more years this organisation had set up its telephone exchange in Guildhall Street and a decade later moved operations to the old Preston Gas Company offices in Glover Street, where the multi-storey Avenham car park now stands.
Despite the NTC being taken over in 1912 by the Post Office, the Preston Telephone Exchange remained at the Glover Street premises until 1931, when an automatic telephone system was installed in the General Post Office building in the Market Place. Subscribers now had the freedom to dial most calls themselves. At the official launch of the new system it was stated that 15,000 calls were handled daily in Preston.
From the mid-1940s the increase in telephones was dramatic, with modern technology and underground cables leading to greater efficiency. A reflection of this progress was seen locally in June 1964 when the main Preston telephone exchange was moved to the purpose-built structure on Moor Lane. The era of trunk dialling had arrived and by 1980 two out of three homes within the Preston Telephone Area had a telephone installed.
Twixt Walker Street and Moor Lane the mighty BT Building – Telephone House by Building Design Partnership, 1960-64.
A decent office block with rough patterned concrete end walls.
Pevsner
The front elevation was re-clad in 1992 the back is intact
BDP’s founder Professor Sir George Grenfell Baines, known affectionately as GG, was born in 1908 and set up in practice as an architect in Preston in 1937.
Four years later he teamed up with two other Preston practices and the Grenfell Baines Group was born. Expansion in various locations in the UK continued throughout the 1940s and 1950s and in 1951 GG was the only northern architect appointed to design a building for the Festival of Britain in London.
In 1961, his long cherished ambition of establishing the world’s first interdisciplinary practice was realised and Building Design Partnership was founded. It was a successful formula and on the occasion of his retirement in 1974GG’s advice was
By 1870 there are a number of streets which now no longer exist, along with the homes and industry, they have been subsumed by car parks.
In 1960 the Rochdale Road Gas Works built in 1824, is then still extant.
The expansive site spanned over nine acres, including four retort houses, with a capacity of producing 8,500,000 cubic feet of gas daily. Since the end of the 18th century, the site was home to a locomotive/goods shed outside of the main works tramline infrastructure which was used for coal transportation for off-site refining. In the early 1940s, reorganisation and reconstruction ledto alterations and clearance of existing above-ground structures.
Image – Britain from the Air
Image 1907 J Jackson Manchester Local Image Collection.
Image 1958 Lawrence Kaye Manchester Local Image Collection.
Bromley Street.
Image 1964 Lawrence Kaye Manchester Local Image Collection.
Image 1966 Thomas Brooks Manchester Local Image Collection.
It’s 2026 and almost everything has been erased.
This is the only remnant of the former gasworks, preserved on Gould Street car park.
The raggle-taggle gaggle of businesses cling on to the Bromley Street arches beneath the railway.
The other side of the tracks.
Bilbrook Street just about hanging in there.
Burstock Street.
Here we are at the former home of Isomax Construction Company Ltd.
Manufacturing and execution of liquid waterproofing systems since 1990. All products are unique development, protected by patents and trademarks. All products are water-based and thus are 100% ecological. More than 1,200,000 sqm of executed projects with ten years warranty, since 1990.
Export to Serbia, Poland, Spain, Montenegro, France,
Latterly the former industrial premises have become temporary home to a Warehouse House Party – under the banner of We Are Nowhere.
In 2024 the are was becoming Victoria North – with the incipient intrusion of gargantuan residential blocks.
The redevelopment project will create better-connected public spaces, new and improved transport links, and more homes, parks and retail spaces for the city’s growing population. Victoria Riverside is at the forefront of the new, distinct residential neighbourhood at Red Bank and New Town, benefitting from its location within Manchester City Centre, but offering something new to its community.
A tale of two exchanges in one city – forty years apart.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens.
The Exchange of 1939 designed by FA Key.
The Exchange of 1976 by Trevor H Anson PSA Architect.
My thanks to Lisa Kinch of tele_exchange over at Instagram for the facts.
Let’s circumnavigate the site.
Just to spoil the twosome allusions there was a third exchange – just as there was a Third Man, returning from the dead.
Bradford’s last manual exchange was on the corner of Nelson Street and Union Street, opposite Bradford Town Hall.
It was opened by the National Telephone Company around 1900 to replace a magneto manual exchange in Swan Arcade. It closed on Saturday 26 July 1947 when the current Bradford exchange was opened.
The original railway station, named Bradford Exchange, was opened by the joint efforts of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and the Great Northern Railway on 9 May 1850. The railway station with its 10 platforms was deemed too large and was again rebuilt, this time on a different site slightly further south.
The Interchange was designed in 1962, it was hailed as a showpiece of European design when it opened in 1971.
Architects WC Brown Borough Architect and RL Moorcroft BR.
The bus station featured a large ridge and furrow design of overall roof, which was subsequently demolished in 1999 to allow for a rebuilding of the bus station, which was opened in 2001.
Further down the line, the plans of 2020 are yet to be realised.
So the curved and tented canopy is still in place, with the addition of seating in the newly landscaped plaza area – designed by Fereday Pollard.
The area has replaced the former taxi rank and drop-off point, and has new paving, seating and planters.
Designs include a new pocket park, plaza and interiors, all formed as a high quality welcoming visual amenity whilst repairing the disparate components which form the backdrop of the proposals. In the plaza, a kaleidoscope of colours is complemented by a grid of generous planters with integrated seating and vibrantly coloured furniture to create a celebratory and flexible meeting space. The ‘Colours of Bradford’ introduce clarity and joy, with the new plaza serving as an extension to the station concourse, allowing meeting and dwell space to interact with the city and onward journeys. Reinforcing the moor to meadow narrative of our original scheme, the new pocket park creates a pollinator park, encouraging and promoting a connection with the wider surrounding landscape of Bradford and combined with the Tower of Now, pays tribute to the rich and varied cultures found in Bradford.
Fereday Pollard
With Bradford awarded the UK City of Culture 2025, and an expected 15 million visitors during its year of celebrations, the city is ready for its moment in the spotlight. As part of these exciting developments, Bigg Design and Fun Makes Good are transforming Bradford’s main bus and rail interchange with super-scale, multi-surface artworks that will create an exciting, welcoming gateway to the city.
Their design work not a million miles from the prints and paintings of Richard Paul Lohse.
For me, this lower concourse always seems to have echoes of Jean-Luc Godard’s film Alphaville.
There are no special props or futuristic sets: instead, the film was shot in real locations in Paris, the night-time streets of the capital becoming the streets of Alphaville, while modernist glass and concrete buildings – which in 1965 were new and strange architectural designs, represent the city’s interiors.
St John’s College was founded as a men’s college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979. Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to provide a source of educated Roman Catholic clerics to support the Counter-Reformation under Queen Mary.
St John’s is the wealthiest college in Oxford, with assets worth over £790 million as of 2022, largely due to nineteenth-century suburban development of land in the city of Oxford of which it is the ground landlord.
The original buildings of the College were designed by William Butterfield 1814-1900. Although the darling of the Tractarian movement, Butterfield was a controversial choice, as his style – a form of High Victorian Gothic had long provoked argument in Oxford. The original Gothic revival of the 1840s was purely imitative, seeking to blend new buildings with the pre-existing architecture of the city. However, this did not satisfy Butterfield, who “sought a new form of Gothic which would both convey eternal truths and would express the spirit of the age”.
The College was lucky in that the ambitious vision of its founders allowed it to house the majority of its students for decades. However, by 1967, it had become clear to the College that there was a need to expand on a large scale. With the £500,000 cost funded via the Centenary Appeal, the project remained challenging – the site available was wedge-shaped, construction had to be phased, as funds became available, and the buildings had to stand next to Butterfield’s imposing work. To meet this challenge, the College chose an up-and-coming firm of architects, Ahrends, Burton and Koralek ABK.
Ahrends, Burton and Koralek – ABK was established in London in 1961 by three young AA graduates, Peter Ahrends, Richard Burton and Paul Koralek. By the 1970s, ABK was known as one of the most creative and versatile of Britain’s younger practices, its workload ranging from college buildings in Oxford and Chichester to housing, public libraries, retail and industrial buildings.
While influenced by High-tech, their buildings were characterised by a concern for strong form and materiality. Major projects of the 1980s included stations for the Docklands Light Railway and the pioneering St Mary’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight, as well as buildings at Hooke Park in Dorset designed in collaboration with Frei Otto.
ABK’s victory in the prestigious 1982 competition for an extension to the National Gallery in London reflected the firm’s standing but the scheme was abandoned following a controversial intervention by the Prince of Wales.
The College was lucky in that the ambitious vision of its founders allowed it to house the majority of its students for decades. However, by 1967, it had become clear to the College that there was a need to expand on a large scale. With the £500,000 cost funded via the Centenary Appeal, the project remained challenging – the site available was wedge-shaped, construction had to be phased, as funds became available, and the buildings had to stand next to Butterfield’s imposing work. To meet this challenge, the College chose an up-and-coming firm of architects, Ahrends, Burton and Koralek – ABK.
The construction was completed in two phases, the De Breyne quad – completed in 1972, was largely funded by the Adeby Trust. The second phase – completed in 1976, was primarily funded by the Hayward Foundation.
Whilst ABK’s architecture did not seek to imitate Butterfield, it nevertheless adopted elements from his work. The buildings follow the exterior line of the College and the roofline varies along its length, gradually decreasing as it approaches the Butterfield buildings. Yet, the architecture also manages to be innovative. The exterior is fortress-like, punctuated by slot windows, with the buff coloured brick forming a contrast to the red of the original buildings. Internally, the walls are formed by overlapping layers of glass, creating a “soft underbelly”, which mirrors Butterfield’s patterns in its reflective surface.
Once again, Keble’s choices proved to be controversial. The Architectural Review of 1977 claimed the walls “suggest the exterior of some strange zoo”, yet the Royal Institute of British Architects saw fit to award it their Southern region award in 1978 and in 2001 it became one of the youngest Grade 2* listed buildings, a ranking reserved for “particularly important buildings of more than special interest”.
I was walking from the railway station, a map of Oxford folded in my back pocket.
Having no real notion of anything really, I simply followed my intuition and ended up here.
Worcester College was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet 1648–1701 of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms was adopted by the college. Its predecessor, Gloucester College, had been an institution of learning on the same site since the late 13th century until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539.
Founded as a men’s college, Worcester has been coeducational since 1979.
This Mediaeval terrace is thought to be the oldest surviving domestic building in the city, known as the cottages – forming one side of the Quad.
This is the Casson Building – undergraduate accommodation.
The Linbury Building is a dedicated conferencing and private dining venue enjoying a beautiful natural setting among mature trees and landscaped lawns.
Accommodating up to one hundred guests for receptions or forty eight on a fully-catered basis, the Linbury Building offers the perfect venue for your mid-sized event. Set among the College’s award-winning gardens, the Linbury allows you to enjoy our unique natural setting thanks to floor-to-ceiling glazing which can be retracted to create an al fresco space in the summer.
With its own bespoke furniture made from English oak and College-crested leather chairs, the main conferencing space can be adapted into a wide variety of configurations, from seminar, cabaret or theatre to private dining and drinks receptions. The adjacent foyer area is a perfect space for delegate registration, break-out coffee and pastries or buffet lunch service.
John Davan Sainsbury – Baron Sainsbury of Preston Candover 1927 – 2022 was a British businessman and politician. He served as the President of Sainsbury’s, and sat in the House of Lords as a life peer and member of the Conservative Party
Robert Alfred Maguire 1931–2019 was an influential British modernist architect and leading thinker in the British liturgical architectural movement of the Church of England. Maguire and Keith Murray formed an architectural practice in 1959.
Nazrin Shah ascended the throne of Perak in 2014. As Sultan of Perak, he has been a strong advocate for education, Islamic moderation, and national unity. He has served as deputy king under Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan, Sultan Abdullah of Pahang, and Sultan Ibrahim of Johor.
The Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre is a new building of 2017 housing a large lecture theatre, a student learning space, seminar rooms and a dance studio. The project is not simply the provision of new facilities, but also the development and enhancement of the setting of this significant part of the College site. Whilst the relationship between the new buildings and the listed parkland is important, it is only one part of a complex arrangement.
Elizabeth Frink’s sculpture Seated Man II – on loan from Yorkshire Sculpture Park, in accordance with the wishes of the artist’s late son, Lin Jammet, 2020.
He overlooks The Sainsbury Building student accommodation – 1983 Architect: Richard MacCormac
The College Chapel was built in the 18th century. George Clarke, Henry Keene, and James Wyatt were responsible for different stages of its lengthy construction 1720–1791, owing to a shortage of funds. The interior columns and pilasters, the dome, and the delicate foliage plastering are all Wyatt’s work. His classical interior was insufficiently emphatic for the tastes of militant Victorian churchmen, and between 1864 and 1866 the chapel was redecorated by William Burges.
It is highly unusual and decorative; being predominantly pink, the pews are decorated with carved animals, including kangaroos and whales, and the walls are riotously colourful, and include frescoes of dodos and peacocks. Its stained glass windows were to have been designed by John Everett Millais, but Burges rejected his designs and entrusted the work to Henry Holiday.
Wikipedia
My first visit to Oxford and the centuries wide cornucopia of architectural styles and fashion.
In 1956, with University considering plans for expansion, Alan Bullock obtained approval to transform St Catherine’s Society into a fully residential college – the search for a site and funding began.
An ambitious fundraising campaign began, focusing on the national shortage of scientists and on Bullock’s proposal of an increased number of science students at St Catherine’s than was usual for an Oxford college. In 1960 almost eight acres of Holywell Great Meadow was acquired from Merton College and the College’s chosen architect, Arne Jacobsen of Denmark, began to implement his design. His modernist masterpiece was to become the most important 20th-century collegiate buildings in Oxford, and is now Grade I listed.
In 1962 St Catherine’s College opened its doors – while still under construction, with Alan Bullock as its Master. The first undergraduates were admitted, and were quickly dubbed the ‘Dirty Thirty’ owing to the lack of running hot water. 1964 saw the ceremonial opening of the College by the then Chancellor of the University, Harold Macmillan, and ten years later in 1974, staying true to its forward-looking ethos, it became one of the first colleges to admit women.
As a footnote – it’s possibly not a great idea to rush around an unfamiliar city trying to snap as much as possible on a very hot day time limited by budget train bookings largely underfed and thirsty.
St Catherine’s College: 1961-66. Arne Jacobsen – Grade I Listed
Podium and all buildings upon it. GV I College buildings, raised on a podium, including dining hall, common room blocks; two residential blocks; library; Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre; bell tower; piers and covering to walkways to east and west of library and east and west of hall; bridge adjoining west side of podium; brick walls enclosing canal and patio areas on western edge of podium; brick walls to patio areas to eastern edge of podium; twenty five short stretches of garden wall all running east-west, some incorporating seats; paving to podium surface and steps to east and south sides.
Designed by James Stirling and Partners in 1966-1967 for Queen’s College, Oxford, and built 1968-1971, with Roy Cameron as associate, and Frank Newby of F J Samuely and Partners as engineer.
RIBA pix 2005 Jeremy Harrison
Listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
* as a highly significant work by Sir James Stirling, one of Britain’s foremost post-war architects;
* as the last of a triumvirate of university buildings that are without doubt amongst Stirling’s most significant works in England;
* as a highly creative re-working of a familiar formal language, executed with masterful handling of form and colour, characteristic of Stirling’s style;
* for the high degree of survival of the original plan form, fixtures and fittings, which have been little altered since the building’s completion, including but not limited to the bedrooms, porter’s lodge, and breakfast room;
* as a distinctive and popular piece of post-war university architecture.
On the day of my visit the building was secured and in a state of semi-dereliction, mothballed by the owners TheQueens College Oxford.
There have been plans and a competition for refurbishment:
Perhaps the most charismatic of James Stirling’s surviving buildings; the Florey Building is hugely admired worldwide for its boldness and heroism.
Despite some practical and infamous failings, the Florey has a cult presence in Oxford: a modernist’s riposte to a city defined by traditional architectural masterworks.
The Queen’s College Fellows seek a dedicated team who are inspired by Stirling’s exhilarating vision. The challenge: to use advances in technology to update the building, provide modern facilities and achieve exemplary energy design.
The competition has now concluded — 27th February 2014
The Queen’s College, Oxford is delighted to announce that the team led by Avanti Architects has won the design competition to update the Grade II listed Florey building, widely regarded as an emblem of modernism. Avanti will now work to develop their scheme for the project and determine construction priorities.
The plans however were poorly received:
Alas the proposal for Florey lets down the practice, the college and most importantly Jim Stirling and the Modernist corpus, with a design that all but wrecks the essence of this unique building.
Alan Berman – founding partner at Berman Guedes Stretton
These proposals must be thrown out and consigned with distaste to the dustbin as a gross violation of Stirling’s intentions.
If permitted, they would constitute the comprehensive betrayal, by alteration, of one of the internationally most important buildings of the 20th century.
Thomas Muirhead – Stirling’s friend and former colleague.
Furthermore there has been a history of criticism of the building:
At the official opening in 1971, the Queen Mother was rumoured to have said it was the ugliest building she had ever seen.
College bursar AA Williams described it as – a structure revolting and inhuman in its hideousness and defective in practically every aspect of its functioning.
Just a year later, students were complaining that it leaked, was noisy, too hot in summer, too cold in winter, they couldn’t stand up straight in the showers, and there were no baths.
Lord Florey, the pioneer of penicillin after whom the building is named put up the money, and was almost the architect’s sole supporter in the college.
This culminated in a legal battle, an intense dislike of the building throughout the college, a reluctance to spend anything but the minimum on maintenance, and decades later, to the possibility of demolition.
Oxford Mail.
So with little institutional love and a soupçon of general loathing, we are left with a Listed building in limbo.
Happily Leicester University are taking care to care for their Stirling building.
Following my previous visits to the University of York, recording the history and the Fred Millett Reliefs, I have searched the RIBA pix archives to find further images.
They mainly illustrate the Derwent and Langwith Colleges – both built using the CLASP system of construction.
The University of York was founded in 1963 and work on its campus facilities in the grounds of Heslington Hall was begun in 1964. The first two colleges, Langwith and Derwent, accepted residential students for the autumn term of 1965. The original buildings were designed by Sir Andrew Derbyshire of Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall & Partners, and assembled using the CLASP system of prefabricated construction.
Derwent College: one of the two covered walkways linking the college buildings with sculptural relief by Fred Millett at the far end.
Photographs 1965 – Reginald Hugo de Burgh Galwey.
Derwent College: a concrete panel sculptured by Fred Millett.
Derwent College.
Photographs 1965 Keith Gibson.
JB Morrell Library.
Derwent College: a covered walkway over the lake.
Central Hall.
Photograph 1972 Bill Toomey.
Vanbrugh College: stepped roof to the covered way leading down to the lake.
Photograph 1972 Peter Bairstow.
Derwent College and Heslington Hall.
Photographs 1965 – Reginald Hugo de Burgh Galwey.
Langwith College, seen from the lake.
Langwith College.
Photographs 1965 Bill Toomey.
David Brown Laboratories: the flue stack.
David Brown laboratories: the water tower.
Photographs 1965 – Reginald Hugo de Burgh Galwey.
Derwent College.
Derwent College.
Langwith College: close-up of the oriel windows.
Photographs 1965 Bill Toomey.
Derwent College: a concrete sculptured screen flanking a covered way.
Derwent College: a concrete sculptured screen flanking a covered way.
One of several concrete link bridges.
Another of the several concrete link bridges.
Photographs 1965 – Reginald Hugo de Burgh Galwey.
David Brown laboratories: seen from one of the link bridges.
David Brown Laboratories: the flue stack and water tower rising above the laboratory blocks.
J. B. Morrell Library: the central staircase and lift tower.
Photographs 1965 Keith Gibson.
Central Hall.
JB Morrell Library, University of York, seen from the south side of Heslington Road with linking pedestrian bridge and ramp in foreground and cast aluminium sculpture by Austin Wright
JB Morrell Library: the covered pedestrian bridge linking the library to the southern side of the campus.
JB Morrell Library.
JB Morrell Library: the main entrance and terrace.
JB Morrell Library: the issue counter seen from the second floor.
JB Morrell Library: viewpoint from the fourth floor.
The covered pedestrian bridge linking the southern side of the campus to the JB Morrell Library on the north side.
The chapel was closed on a Saturday so we wandered around outside, peering curiously through the windows. Surrounded by mature planting, the bare brick and glazing is more than somewhat softened, the planting however does inhibit the intrepid photographer.
Designed 1965, built 1966-7; architect George Gaze Pace, executant assistant Ronald Sims.
Reinforced concrete frame, partly left exposed, clad in pale brick. Monopitched roofs. Low flat roofs to entrances and between the three main elements with thick board-marked eaves. Central space flanked by angled transepts, with organ loft to (liturgical) west end and wing of offices behind. Long narrow flat-headed windows between brick mullions, timber doors. Attached walls and steel gate lead to inner garden, intended for contemplation.
Interior with exposed concrete frame, including piers and thick ring beam at gallery level, with brick infill. Boarded timber ceiling to main space; board-marked ceilings to low side aisles. Choir gallery with organ, designed by Pace, set behind timber lattice screen also to his designs, and reached via narrow spiral stair. Ceramic piece to balcony front 1999 by Helen Batty. Some pews, brought from the college’s former chapel of 1858 remodelled by Pace in the 1950s.
Hanging pendant light-fittings to Pace’s designs. Altar, lectern and altar seating all by Pace; pulpit designed 1998. Windows – internally the concrete of the mullions is exposed, all originally clear leaded lights, but now stained glass is being incorporated, most notably ‘The Water of Life’ by Cathy Nutkins, a 1990 graduate, in right-hand transept.
Chapel of Christ the Teacher to rear, by foyer, refurbished 1994 by Helen Turner, textile artist. The building is well-suited to the incorporation of student works of art, some temporary, some permanent, and additions are continually being made to the collection.
I had spent the day in Southampton in May, the first area I explored was Wyndham Court.
At the end of a long day I found myself there again, with an hour to spare before my train back to Bournemouth.
The sky was no longer blue, the sun was now occluded.
The photographs were almost monotone, so with a small tweak I made them monochrome.
Designed by Lyons Israel Ellis for Southampton City Council in 1966, ED Lyons being the partner in charge and architects Frank Linden and Aubrey Hume also assigned to the job.
The structural engineers were Hajnal-Konyi and Myers and the firm of builders was G Minter.
Lyons Israel Ellis, though well known as a finishing school for the famed likes of Stirling, Gowan, Colquhoun et al, were the sort of Brutalists that didn’t get Yale scholarships, shiny monographs or late careers in pomo. They are found more often designing local authority housing, comprehensive schools and other unsexy things – most of them robust enough to be extant and in good nick. From their Old Vic extension through to the London School of Engineering, they were giants of big, chunky, angular neo-constructivist architecture rife with skylines, cantilevers and complex geometries, all in satisfyingly raw, tactile concrete. As Colquhoun later put it, this was architecture for those who had nothing but contempt for ‘the Englishness of English art’ and other consolatory narratives.
Their masterpiece, Wyndham Court, ought to be as well-known as the Brunswick Centre or the Barbican, and isn’t largely because of where it is. It is a monumental, civic housing project on the grandest scale. As a building, it shows more than a hint of rhetoric creeping into LIE’s usually astringent aesthetic. Placed just outside Southampton Central Station with a fine view of the docks, its service tower skyline and long, streamlined volumes have more than a hint of the ocean liner about them. Here they arc around a square, with shops on the ground floor, high-density-city centre living for council tenants rather than as an aspirational loft-living lifestyle. A magnificent vote of confidence in a city which has built little of note since, it’s also, for me, the building that announces that I’m ‘home’ far less depressingly than BDP’s repugnant West Quay shopping centre on the other side of the railway line – a massive concrete statement that another city was and still is possible.
1971 built of a pre-cast concrete panel system, dour, on an awkwardly sloping site.
I beg to differ – what’s the opposite of dour?
So says the online Thesaurus – and I heartily concur, for the whole building has had a makeover and a half.
Civic is a super energy-efficient workspace in the centre of Wigan town centre. The BREEAM Excellent building has space for business of all sizes, from desks for solo start-ups, all the way to big open plan offices with their own front door.
The brutalist beast has been lovingly restored by Capital&Centric to celebrate its architecture, with original waffle ceilings, corduroy concrete and stunning feature windows that flood the space with light.
It was great to visit and tour Wigan Civic Centre on Millgate, to see the inspiring work being done to create sustainable workspaces and amenities in the centre of our town. This development, alongside others taking place and planned across the North West, will help to revitalise our public spaces
With students, start-ups and professionals situating themselves elsewhere in Greater Manchester, Wigan town had been missing out on the economic and cultural vitality that high quality workspace brings. Civic’s transformation represents not just the overhaul of a tired concrete building, but a wider renewal of place and opportunity for Wigan.
Working with Wigan Council and Capital & Centric, we completed the refurbishment of the 50,000 sq ft building that is Wigan Civic Centre. Delivering aspirational office accommodation to stimulate economic growth with the goal to create a lasting social impact in Wigan. In addition to exemplar market-leading workspace, amenities include a rooftop terrace, mini cinema, gym studio and co-working/coffee shop space.
Here’s the exterior.
Many thanks to the Cotton CaféBar for kindly allowing us in after hours.
Ultimately, civic stands as a symbol of optimism for Wigan, proving that intelligent commercial design can catalyse economic renewal, secure a sustainable future, and truly lift a town’s spirits, without erasing its history. It is a gold standard for the adaptive reuse of 20th-century landmarks.
Barclays House was constructed by Barclays bank from 1972 to 1975 as part of a move to decentralise its offices from London.
The structure, was designed in the Brutalist style by architects Wilson, Mason and Partners. It consists of three main wings, each octagonal in plan, and dominates the town centre skyline.
Barclays first occupied the office in January 1976. The building’s basement is below sea level and is often flooded or damp, which prevented its use by the bank for storage. The structure has also sunk over time due to its significant mass
Barclays left the site in January 2022 and put the structure up for sale by sealed bid auction. The highest bidder was Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council but they withdrew from the purchase in September 2022.
BCP offered £17 million, almost three times more than the next highest bidder, thought to be Fortitudo at £6.5 million, who wanted to demolish the structure and build three apartment towers.
In February 2023, boarding was put up around the building and the Bournemouth Daily Echo reported that a new buyer had been found. In November 2023, proposals for redevelopment to residential use were announced, 362 flats are proposed for the building.
Town hall planner Gareth Ball has given the go-ahead for VCRE Four Poole Limited to convert the historic building into a 362-bedroom apartment block.
No parking spaces will be available for the future residents, as noted by BCP case officer Mr Ball as being in accordance with the council’s rules. Instead, the development will come with 488 cycle spaces – or one space for every resident. The scheme will feature a gym, communal workspace, squash courts, a games room with table tennis, pool, video games, surfboard storage and a rooftop garden.
Barclays House was bought last year for £5.3 million, according to documents.
Here are the photographs I took in May 2026 – incorporating the multi storey car park.
But what of the future?
This recent ARC projectinvolves transforming the former Barclays building in Poole into 362 modern residential flats while preserving the existing building’s façade. This project focuses on revitalising a heritage landmark by repurposing it with innovative designs that offer easy access to public transport, exceed space standards for comfort and practicality, and create a strong sense of community through shared internal and external amenities.
After twenty years, the waterproofing on the top deck of the busy Avenue Road council car park in Bournemouth was failing. Water was penetrating the structure and dripping onto users’ cars on the lower levels and also into a tenant’s offices situated below. More importantly, this was affecting the structural integrity of the car park.
Being close to the sea, the car park is subjected to highly corrosive moisture and salt levels, which if left unprotected could cause long term structural damage. And indeed, further investigation by the contractors Concrete Repairs Ltd. and Triflex’s Technical Team revealed that part of the concrete substrate was cracking and failing causing potential health and safety issues.
As a result, the council needed to refurbish the car park and have a reliable waterproofing solution that would extend the car park’s service life. In addition, this work needed to be finished before the start of the busy summer tourist period.
Concrete Repairs Ltd. and the Triflex Technical Team visited the site to complete an extensive site survey. Testing was also conducted to determine the suitability and compatibility of the substrate and the requirements for its preparation. Triflex DeckFloor was specified for the decks with DeckFloor Ramp System to provide a more aggressive aggregate was to the ramps and inclined areas of the car park. The ramp system incorporates emery aggregate which provides additional traction for those harder wearing areas.
Modern Mooch 