Charles Lanyon is renowned as the architectof the iconic main building at Queen’s,although the drawings were executed byhis young assistant, William Henry Lynn.Lynn’s later career included the design ofthe library, the old Physics building and thebuildings which created the harmoniouscentral space that survived until the 1960s.This was a remarkable record over a sixty-year period.

After Lanyon and Lynn, other architectscontinued the tradition. These includedRobert Cochrane of Dublin, who designedthe Students’ Union and the Englisharchitect, W A Forsythe, who added thedining hall (now the Harty Room) andcompleted the south wing of the courtyard.The vision, shared by architects andUniversity alike, was that the Tudor Gothicarchitectural style, reflecting the medievalfoundations and long history of theuniversities of Oxford and Cambridge, wascentral to the credibility of the new college.It was also the appropriate metaphor for aseat of learning, in the same way asFlorentine palaces were the models forbanks and the great medieval Gothiccathedrals inspired Victorian church design.

Establishment, 1845 - 1925

The splendid façade of the Lanyon Building, as enduring an image for studentstoday as it was for the original students in 1849.

Staff and students celebrate Graduation Day c. 1886 at the front entrance.

Lynn’s drawings of the library, works of art in themselves and also the workingtools used to create the art of architecture.

Lynn’s library, a High Victorian gem, with University Square beyond, marredonly by the library tower rising behind.

Angels flanking the front entranceherald wisdom and righteousnesswithin.

The intricate hammer beam roof of the Harty Room, by W A Forsythe,1932-3, an evolution of the historic tradition rather than a break from it.

Gargoyles and polychromebrickwork details from the vibrantand robust High Victorian library.

The erosion of stonework addsto the sense of history which Lanyonno doubt would have found inkeeping with his original intent.

The Library cupola gives some senseof the complexity of the originallanterns planned for the mainbuilding but omitted in budget cuts.

This aerial view of Queens in 1952 shows the remarkable stylistic homogeneityof the main campus following Lynn’s expansion masterplan of 1911, whichsurvived until the 1960s.

Breaking with Tradition, 1926 - 1959This Tudor Gothic dominance wasfinally broken in 1926, firstly by theneo-Georgian Agriculture Building (nowGeosciences) on Elmwood Avenue andthen by the Sir William Whitla Hall, startedin 1939 although not completed until afterthe Second World War. Vice-ChancellorDr Fred Ogilvie broke with traditionand appointed the young John McGeagh,with Edward Maufe of London asconsultant. They created a truly modernbuilding in its severity and purity, with flatroof and bold massing, softened by brickand stone and fine sculpture. The buildingwas awarded a Royal Institute of BritishArchitects (RIBA) award in 1950.

John McGeagh was the leading architectfor new buildings at Queen’s for thenext ten years. These included the Geologybuilding (1949-54) in Elmwood Avenue,and the new Physics building (1955-62)opposite the south wing of the Lanyonbuilding.

The most ambitious commission of thisperiod was the David Keir building,designed by the English firm, Lanchesterand Lodge. This neo-Georgian buildingof 1950-59, sited between the StranmillisRoad and the Malone Road, carriedon the tradition introduced with theWhitla Hall.

This was a period of great expansion forthe University, and although there was adistinct break with the Tudor Gothictradition, the brick and stone character ofthe new buildings fitted in comfortably withthe domestic scale of the surrounding redbrick suburbs. All that quiet deference wassoon to be shattered.

The monumental neo-Georgian Modernism of the David Keir building –traditional materials but contemporary massing.

The severe horizontality of the Whitla Hall, softened by rich decorativedetail and warm materials. John McGeagh’s best work in his long associationwith the University.

John McGeagh’s Physics building is even more severe, but with the overallbulk carefully reduced in scale by layered massing of the various elements.

The cantilevered staircase of the entrance hall, aligned with the passagewaythrough to the quadrangle, is the Physics building’s most distinctive feature.

The Stranmillis Road façade of the David Keir Building, the horizontalityrelieved by the central entrance and staircase.

The dawn of the 1960s witnessed newinfluences being brought to bear on theUniversity’s architecture, most notably withthe Ashby building (1960-5) on theStranmillis Road, the Microbiology building(1961-5) at the Royal Victoria Hospital,and the Medical Biology Centre (1968) onthe Lisburn Road.

The Ashby building, by Cruickshank andSeward of Manchester, is a gleaming whitetower set against low pavilions withinlandscaped grounds, contrasting stronglywith the conservative David Keir buildingbuilt only a few years previously. It is crisplydetailed and the undoubted quality of bothdesign and construction has created a verymodern building that adds to the overallarchitectural character of the area, despitebeing completely different from itssurroundings.

The Microbiology building, by Sir HughCasson and Neville Condor, is one ofthe most striking modern buildings inBelfast; it is starker and less approachablethan the Ashby and such uncompromisingmodernity would perhaps prove lessacceptable today.

John McGeagh moved away from theneo-Georgian style to the more modernforms of the new library bookstack(1962-67). The Social Sciences building(now the Peter Froggatt Centre), designedby Donald Shanks and other Ulster

architects in 1962-66, and theAdministration building of 1971(Cruickshank and Seward) replaced theTudor Gothic buildings of the north andeast sides of the quadrangle. The useof red brick softens the impact of thesemodern buildings with their stronghorizontal emphasis.

The University’s first venture intoindustrialised buildings was the ScienceLibrary in Chlorine Gardens in 1965,which used the SEAC system to a designby Twist and Whitley of Cambridge.The building gained a RIBA award in 1970and, despite first impressions of anunremarkable structure, it has a certainpresence and is deftly placed in a slopingwell-wooded site.

International Influences, 1960 - 1980

The Science Library under construction in 1965, a strange cuckoo in a redbrick nest.

The contrast between the terraced streets and the Ashby tower is only exceededby that between the construction techniques of the 1960s and today.

The Ashby tower remains one of the best high rise buildings in Belfast, atestament to its quality of design and construction.

Lanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute which faced Elmwood Avenue across theLisburn Road. Inconceivable today that such a building would be demolished.

Queen’s fully appreciates its architecturalheritage and takes active steps toconserve and celebrate it. The demolitionof Queen’s Elms, a terrace of seven housesdesigned by Thomas Jackson, to make wayfor the Students’ Union (1966), and ofLanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute to buildthe Medical Biology Centre (1968), isnow generally regretted. The outcry at thetime led to the formation of the UlsterArchitectural Heritage Society.

Queen’s was designated as the firstConservation Area in Northern Ireland in1987 and the University now owns over100 listed buildings. This rich architecturalheritage has created a unique central focusin what is a large and dispersed Universitycampus. Stewardship of such historicbuildings also presents a challenge inmeeting changing academic, as well asstatutory, needs. The University hasresponded sympathetically by replacingpoor quality buildings with new, moreimaginative structures and by sensitivelyadapting and restoring the listed buildings.

The key conservation projects to datehave been in University Square and theLanyon Building, particularly the restorationof the Great Hall. This project, and thereordering of the south wing to createThe Naughton Gallery, were completed in2000 to designs by Consarc Conservation,

architects. It won an RIBA award in 2001,in recognition of the transformation of asomewhat rundown space into a magnificentbanqueting hall at the heart of theUniversity. The Canada Room andCouncil Chamber (Robert McKinstry 1983),the Visitors’ Centre (Twenty-two over Seven1995) and Lanyon north (Hall BlackDouglas 2002) are all sensitive reworkingsof the original building, introducingcontemporary features and themes, yetrespecting the quality of Lanyon’soriginal design.

The requirements of the DisabilityDiscrimination Act have also offeredchallenges in relation to the provision ofuniversal access to, and within, theUniversity’s historic buildings. The WhitlaHall, University Square, the Lanyon buildingand the David Keir building are all goodexamples of sensitive adaptations. Queen’sis now regarded by the Environment andHeritage Service as an exemplar of goodpractice in access design.

Conservation

The Great Hall, finished at last to the quality Lanyon’s building deserves andmight have achieved had it not been for budget restrictions.

The oriel window re-opened,lighting the dais and top table.

Restoring the angels and trusses,allowed the craftmanship of theGreat Hall roof to be appreciated.

The warm richness of theCanada Room with its maple leaflight fittings.

Cherith McKinstry’s fine paintingdominates the relocated mainstaircase to the Canada Room andThe Naughton Gallery.

The Great Hall before restoration. Pink and white panelling, closed inoriel window, loss of dais, a revolving door and many other indignitiesmarred the original space.

Jackson’s ‘Queens Elms’, the original student accommodation demolishedin 1966, prompting the formation of UAHS and the start of ‘listing’ inNorthern Ireland.

The Elms Student Village – originally dominated by the high rise towers ofthe 60s and 70s, gradually being redeveloped as modern low-rise buildingsin a mature parkland setting.

The University continues to expand and atpresent is in the middle of a major capitaldevelopment programme.

Early aspirations for a Beaux Arts complexon Elmwood Avenue never came to fruition;the Students’ Union (Ostick and Williams1966) was built instead. The Union buildingwas to have been replaced in 2000 byLanyon II, an ambitious scheme won incompetition by Dixon Jones with BuildingDesign Partnership, but the project wasnever realised.

The Queen’s Elms halls of residence site onthe Malone Road was laid out in the late1960s and ‘70s, in a series of tower blocksdesigned by Cruickshank and Seward. Morerecently, as standards of studentaccommodation have changed, the site hasbeen largely redeveloped by RogerMcMichael and the Robinson PattersonPartnership (2000-2005), with modern low-rise buildings creating a well-landscapedresidential village of very high quality. Thefirst phase of the redevelopment, BeveridgeHall, was recognised by an award from theRoyal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA)in 2000.

Another new building, the McClay ResearchCentre for Pharmaceutical Sciences, wasawarded an RSUA Design Award in 2002.

The new Sonic Arts Research Centre inCloreen Park by Hall Black Douglas (2002)is a recent addition to the campus, but

sympathetic to its context. The musicalnotes carved into the brickwork express thefunction of the building, while the use ofred brick softens its character and links itwith the adjoining David Keir building.

The new Library commission was won byShepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbotfollowing a limited design competition,which also included submissions from FosterAssociates and Scott Tallon Walker. It iscurrently at design stage, but the montagesand models in the exhibition show how itwill relate to the campus and the adjoiningBotanic Gardens.

Today there is genuine public engagementin the planning process and moreopportunity for constructive dialogue andfor the general public to influence publicarchitecture. With a significant investmentsuch as the new Library project (£44m), itis important to engage the interested public.What ambitions are appropriate for Queen’sin the 21st century and what role canarchitecture play? Queen’s is nearly 160years old and is implementing an ambitiousprogramme for future development.Investment in its built infrastructure and acommitment to lasting quality will beguiding principles in guaranteeing that it iscommissioning the listed buildings of thefuture.

Aspirations, 1980 - 2005

The modern and innovative Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), 2002.

Musical notation embodied in thebrickwork, linking form and use.

SARC provides a flexible test bedfor acoustic research.

The new Library represents the biggest architectural challenge and opportunityfor many years - a balance of contextualism and contemporary expression?

Whitla Hall entrance hall – exquisite, bespoke detailing where every elementis a considered part of the composition, consciously creating somethingnew and fresh in the context of a campus which up until then had taken ahistoricist approach.

The main architectural events are the staircase and galleries punctuating theteaching areas with light filled spaces.

Builders, Bricks and Mortar BoardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University 1845-2005

Curator, Dawson StelfoxArchitect, Consarc Design Group

Builders, Bricks and MortarboardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University , 1845 - 2005

Establishment, 1845 - 1925

08.09.05

Client, Gary JebbDirector of Estates, QUB

08.09.05

Charles Lanyon is renowned as the architectof the iconic main building at Queen’s,although the drawings were executed byhis young assistant, William Henry Lynn.Lynn’s later career included the design ofthe library, the old Physics building and thebuildings which created the harmoniouscentral space that survived until the 1960s.This was a remarkable record over a sixty-year period.

After Lanyon and Lynn, other architectscontinued the tradition. These includedRobert Cochrane of Dublin, who designedthe Students’ Union and the Englisharchitect, W A Forsythe, who added thedining hall (now the Harty Room) andcompleted the south wing of the courtyard.The vision, shared by architects andUniversity alike, was that the Tudor Gothicarchitectural style, reflecting the medievalfoundations and long history of theuniversities of Oxford and Cambridge, wascentral to the credibility of the new college.It was also the appropriate metaphor for aseat of learning, in the same way asFlorentine palaces were the models forbanks and the great medieval Gothiccathedrals inspired Victorian church design.

Establishment, 1845 - 1925

The splendid façade of the Lanyon Building, as enduring an image for studentstoday as it was for the original students in 1849.

Staff and students celebrate Graduation Day c. 1886 at the front entrance.

Lynn’s drawings of the library, works of art in themselves and also the workingtools used to create the art of architecture.

Lynn’s library, a High Victorian gem, with University Square beyond, marredonly by the library tower rising behind.

Angels flanking the front entranceherald wisdom and righteousnesswithin.

The intricate hammer beam roof of the Harty Room, by W A Forsythe,1932-3, an evolution of the historic tradition rather than a break from it.

Gargoyles and polychromebrickwork details from the vibrantand robust High Victorian library.

The erosion of stonework addsto the sense of history which Lanyonno doubt would have found inkeeping with his original intent.

The Library cupola gives some senseof the complexity of the originallanterns planned for the mainbuilding but omitted in budget cuts.

This aerial view of Queens in 1952 shows the remarkable stylistic homogeneityof the main campus following Lynn’s expansion masterplan of 1911, whichsurvived until the 1960s.

Breaking with Tradition, 1926 - 1959This Tudor Gothic dominance wasfinally broken in 1926, firstly by theneo-Georgian Agriculture Building (nowGeosciences) on Elmwood Avenue andthen by the Sir William Whitla Hall, startedin 1939 although not completed until afterthe Second World War. Vice-ChancellorDr Fred Ogilvie broke with traditionand appointed the young John McGeagh,with Edward Maufe of London asconsultant. They created a truly modernbuilding in its severity and purity, with flatroof and bold massing, softened by brickand stone and fine sculpture. The buildingwas awarded a Royal Institute of BritishArchitects (RIBA) award in 1950.

John McGeagh was the leading architectfor new buildings at Queen’s for thenext ten years. These included the Geologybuilding (1949-54) in Elmwood Avenue,and the new Physics building (1955-62)opposite the south wing of the Lanyonbuilding.

The most ambitious commission of thisperiod was the David Keir building,designed by the English firm, Lanchesterand Lodge. This neo-Georgian buildingof 1950-59, sited between the StranmillisRoad and the Malone Road, carriedon the tradition introduced with theWhitla Hall.

This was a period of great expansion forthe University, and although there was adistinct break with the Tudor Gothictradition, the brick and stone character ofthe new buildings fitted in comfortably withthe domestic scale of the surrounding redbrick suburbs. All that quiet deference wassoon to be shattered.

The monumental neo-Georgian Modernism of the David Keir building –traditional materials but contemporary massing.

The severe horizontality of the Whitla Hall, softened by rich decorativedetail and warm materials. John McGeagh’s best work in his long associationwith the University.

John McGeagh’s Physics building is even more severe, but with the overallbulk carefully reduced in scale by layered massing of the various elements.

The cantilevered staircase of the entrance hall, aligned with the passagewaythrough to the quadrangle, is the Physics building’s most distinctive feature.

The Stranmillis Road façade of the David Keir Building, the horizontalityrelieved by the central entrance and staircase.

The dawn of the 1960s witnessed newinfluences being brought to bear on theUniversity’s architecture, most notably withthe Ashby building (1960-5) on theStranmillis Road, the Microbiology building(1961-5) at the Royal Victoria Hospital,and the Medical Biology Centre (1968) onthe Lisburn Road.

The Ashby building, by Cruickshank andSeward of Manchester, is a gleaming whitetower set against low pavilions withinlandscaped grounds, contrasting stronglywith the conservative David Keir buildingbuilt only a few years previously. It is crisplydetailed and the undoubted quality of bothdesign and construction has created a verymodern building that adds to the overallarchitectural character of the area, despitebeing completely different from itssurroundings.

The Microbiology building, by Sir HughCasson and Neville Condor, is one ofthe most striking modern buildings inBelfast; it is starker and less approachablethan the Ashby and such uncompromisingmodernity would perhaps prove lessacceptable today.

John McGeagh moved away from theneo-Georgian style to the more modernforms of the new library bookstack(1962-67). The Social Sciences building(now the Peter Froggatt Centre), designedby Donald Shanks and other Ulster

architects in 1962-66, and theAdministration building of 1971(Cruickshank and Seward) replaced theTudor Gothic buildings of the north andeast sides of the quadrangle. The useof red brick softens the impact of thesemodern buildings with their stronghorizontal emphasis.

The University’s first venture intoindustrialised buildings was the ScienceLibrary in Chlorine Gardens in 1965,which used the SEAC system to a designby Twist and Whitley of Cambridge.The building gained a RIBA award in 1970and, despite first impressions of anunremarkable structure, it has a certainpresence and is deftly placed in a slopingwell-wooded site.

International Influences, 1960 - 1980

The Science Library under construction in 1965, a strange cuckoo in a redbrick nest.

The contrast between the terraced streets and the Ashby tower is only exceededby that between the construction techniques of the 1960s and today.

The Ashby tower remains one of the best high rise buildings in Belfast, atestament to its quality of design and construction.

Lanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute which faced Elmwood Avenue across theLisburn Road. Inconceivable today that such a building would be demolished.

Queen’s fully appreciates its architecturalheritage and takes active steps toconserve and celebrate it. The demolitionof Queen’s Elms, a terrace of seven housesdesigned by Thomas Jackson, to make wayfor the Students’ Union (1966), and ofLanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute to buildthe Medical Biology Centre (1968), isnow generally regretted. The outcry at thetime led to the formation of the UlsterArchitectural Heritage Society.

Queen’s was designated as the firstConservation Area in Northern Ireland in1987 and the University now owns over100 listed buildings. This rich architecturalheritage has created a unique central focusin what is a large and dispersed Universitycampus. Stewardship of such historicbuildings also presents a challenge inmeeting changing academic, as well asstatutory, needs. The University hasresponded sympathetically by replacingpoor quality buildings with new, moreimaginative structures and by sensitivelyadapting and restoring the listed buildings.

The key conservation projects to datehave been in University Square and theLanyon Building, particularly the restorationof the Great Hall. This project, and thereordering of the south wing to createThe Naughton Gallery, were completed in2000 to designs by Consarc Conservation,

architects. It won an RIBA award in 2001,in recognition of the transformation of asomewhat rundown space into a magnificentbanqueting hall at the heart of theUniversity. The Canada Room andCouncil Chamber (Robert McKinstry 1983),the Visitors’ Centre (Twenty-two over Seven1995) and Lanyon north (Hall BlackDouglas 2002) are all sensitive reworkingsof the original building, introducingcontemporary features and themes, yetrespecting the quality of Lanyon’soriginal design.

The requirements of the DisabilityDiscrimination Act have also offeredchallenges in relation to the provision ofuniversal access to, and within, theUniversity’s historic buildings. The WhitlaHall, University Square, the Lanyon buildingand the David Keir building are all goodexamples of sensitive adaptations. Queen’sis now regarded by the Environment andHeritage Service as an exemplar of goodpractice in access design.

Conservation

The Great Hall, finished at last to the quality Lanyon’s building deserves andmight have achieved had it not been for budget restrictions.

The oriel window re-opened,lighting the dais and top table.

Restoring the angels and trusses,allowed the craftmanship of theGreat Hall roof to be appreciated.

The warm richness of theCanada Room with its maple leaflight fittings.

Cherith McKinstry’s fine paintingdominates the relocated mainstaircase to the Canada Room andThe Naughton Gallery.

The Great Hall before restoration. Pink and white panelling, closed inoriel window, loss of dais, a revolving door and many other indignitiesmarred the original space.

Jackson’s ‘Queens Elms’, the original student accommodation demolishedin 1966, prompting the formation of UAHS and the start of ‘listing’ inNorthern Ireland.

The Elms Student Village – originally dominated by the high rise towers ofthe 60s and 70s, gradually being redeveloped as modern low-rise buildingsin a mature parkland setting.

The University continues to expand and atpresent is in the middle of a major capitaldevelopment programme.

Early aspirations for a Beaux Arts complexon Elmwood Avenue never came to fruition;the Students’ Union (Ostick and Williams1966) was built instead. The Union buildingwas to have been replaced in 2000 byLanyon II, an ambitious scheme won incompetition by Dixon Jones with BuildingDesign Partnership, but the project wasnever realised.

The Queen’s Elms halls of residence site onthe Malone Road was laid out in the late1960s and ‘70s, in a series of tower blocksdesigned by Cruickshank and Seward. Morerecently, as standards of studentaccommodation have changed, the site hasbeen largely redeveloped by RogerMcMichael and the Robinson PattersonPartnership (2000-2005), with modern low-rise buildings creating a well-landscapedresidential village of very high quality. Thefirst phase of the redevelopment, BeveridgeHall, was recognised by an award from theRoyal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA)in 2000.

Another new building, the McClay ResearchCentre for Pharmaceutical Sciences, wasawarded an RSUA Design Award in 2002.

The new Sonic Arts Research Centre inCloreen Park by Hall Black Douglas (2002)is a recent addition to the campus, but

sympathetic to its context. The musicalnotes carved into the brickwork express thefunction of the building, while the use ofred brick softens its character and links itwith the adjoining David Keir building.

The new Library commission was won byShepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbotfollowing a limited design competition,which also included submissions from FosterAssociates and Scott Tallon Walker. It iscurrently at design stage, but the montagesand models in the exhibition show how itwill relate to the campus and the adjoiningBotanic Gardens.

Today there is genuine public engagementin the planning process and moreopportunity for constructive dialogue andfor the general public to influence publicarchitecture. With a significant investmentsuch as the new Library project (£44m), itis important to engage the interested public.What ambitions are appropriate for Queen’sin the 21st century and what role canarchitecture play? Queen’s is nearly 160years old and is implementing an ambitiousprogramme for future development.Investment in its built infrastructure and acommitment to lasting quality will beguiding principles in guaranteeing that it iscommissioning the listed buildings of thefuture.

Aspirations, 1980 - 2005

The modern and innovative Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), 2002.

Musical notation embodied in thebrickwork, linking form and use.

SARC provides a flexible test bedfor acoustic research.

The new Library represents the biggest architectural challenge and opportunityfor many years - a balance of contextualism and contemporary expression?

Whitla Hall entrance hall – exquisite, bespoke detailing where every elementis a considered part of the composition, consciously creating somethingnew and fresh in the context of a campus which up until then had taken ahistoricist approach.

The main architectural events are the staircase and galleries punctuating theteaching areas with light filled spaces.

Builders, Bricks and Mortar BoardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University 1845-2005

Curator, Dawson StelfoxArchitect, Consarc Design Group

Builders, Bricks and MortarboardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University , 1845 - 2005

Breaking with Tradition, 1926 - 1959

08.09.05

Client, Gary JebbDirector of Estates, QUB

08.09.05

Charles Lanyon is renowned as the architectof the iconic main building at Queen’s,although the drawings were executed byhis young assistant, William Henry Lynn.Lynn’s later career included the design ofthe library, the old Physics building and thebuildings which created the harmoniouscentral space that survived until the 1960s.This was a remarkable record over a sixty-year period.

After Lanyon and Lynn, other architectscontinued the tradition. These includedRobert Cochrane of Dublin, who designedthe Students’ Union and the Englisharchitect, W A Forsythe, who added thedining hall (now the Harty Room) andcompleted the south wing of the courtyard.The vision, shared by architects andUniversity alike, was that the Tudor Gothicarchitectural style, reflecting the medievalfoundations and long history of theuniversities of Oxford and Cambridge, wascentral to the credibility of the new college.It was also the appropriate metaphor for aseat of learning, in the same way asFlorentine palaces were the models forbanks and the great medieval Gothiccathedrals inspired Victorian church design.

Establishment, 1845 - 1925

The splendid façade of the Lanyon Building, as enduring an image for studentstoday as it was for the original students in 1849.

Staff and students celebrate Graduation Day c. 1886 at the front entrance.

Lynn’s drawings of the library, works of art in themselves and also the workingtools used to create the art of architecture.

Lynn’s library, a High Victorian gem, with University Square beyond, marredonly by the library tower rising behind.

Angels flanking the front entranceherald wisdom and righteousnesswithin.

The intricate hammer beam roof of the Harty Room, by W A Forsythe,1932-3, an evolution of the historic tradition rather than a break from it.

Gargoyles and polychromebrickwork details from the vibrantand robust High Victorian library.

The erosion of stonework addsto the sense of history which Lanyonno doubt would have found inkeeping with his original intent.

The Library cupola gives some senseof the complexity of the originallanterns planned for the mainbuilding but omitted in budget cuts.

This aerial view of Queens in 1952 shows the remarkable stylistic homogeneityof the main campus following Lynn’s expansion masterplan of 1911, whichsurvived until the 1960s.

Breaking with Tradition, 1926 - 1959This Tudor Gothic dominance wasfinally broken in 1926, firstly by theneo-Georgian Agriculture Building (nowGeosciences) on Elmwood Avenue andthen by the Sir William Whitla Hall, startedin 1939 although not completed until afterthe Second World War. Vice-ChancellorDr Fred Ogilvie broke with traditionand appointed the young John McGeagh,with Edward Maufe of London asconsultant. They created a truly modernbuilding in its severity and purity, with flatroof and bold massing, softened by brickand stone and fine sculpture. The buildingwas awarded a Royal Institute of BritishArchitects (RIBA) award in 1950.

John McGeagh was the leading architectfor new buildings at Queen’s for thenext ten years. These included the Geologybuilding (1949-54) in Elmwood Avenue,and the new Physics building (1955-62)opposite the south wing of the Lanyonbuilding.

The most ambitious commission of thisperiod was the David Keir building,designed by the English firm, Lanchesterand Lodge. This neo-Georgian buildingof 1950-59, sited between the StranmillisRoad and the Malone Road, carriedon the tradition introduced with theWhitla Hall.

This was a period of great expansion forthe University, and although there was adistinct break with the Tudor Gothictradition, the brick and stone character ofthe new buildings fitted in comfortably withthe domestic scale of the surrounding redbrick suburbs. All that quiet deference wassoon to be shattered.

The monumental neo-Georgian Modernism of the David Keir building –traditional materials but contemporary massing.

The severe horizontality of the Whitla Hall, softened by rich decorativedetail and warm materials. John McGeagh’s best work in his long associationwith the University.

John McGeagh’s Physics building is even more severe, but with the overallbulk carefully reduced in scale by layered massing of the various elements.

The cantilevered staircase of the entrance hall, aligned with the passagewaythrough to the quadrangle, is the Physics building’s most distinctive feature.

The Stranmillis Road façade of the David Keir Building, the horizontalityrelieved by the central entrance and staircase.

The dawn of the 1960s witnessed newinfluences being brought to bear on theUniversity’s architecture, most notably withthe Ashby building (1960-5) on theStranmillis Road, the Microbiology building(1961-5) at the Royal Victoria Hospital,and the Medical Biology Centre (1968) onthe Lisburn Road.

The Ashby building, by Cruickshank andSeward of Manchester, is a gleaming whitetower set against low pavilions withinlandscaped grounds, contrasting stronglywith the conservative David Keir buildingbuilt only a few years previously. It is crisplydetailed and the undoubted quality of bothdesign and construction has created a verymodern building that adds to the overallarchitectural character of the area, despitebeing completely different from itssurroundings.

The Microbiology building, by Sir HughCasson and Neville Condor, is one ofthe most striking modern buildings inBelfast; it is starker and less approachablethan the Ashby and such uncompromisingmodernity would perhaps prove lessacceptable today.

John McGeagh moved away from theneo-Georgian style to the more modernforms of the new library bookstack(1962-67). The Social Sciences building(now the Peter Froggatt Centre), designedby Donald Shanks and other Ulster

architects in 1962-66, and theAdministration building of 1971(Cruickshank and Seward) replaced theTudor Gothic buildings of the north andeast sides of the quadrangle. The useof red brick softens the impact of thesemodern buildings with their stronghorizontal emphasis.

The University’s first venture intoindustrialised buildings was the ScienceLibrary in Chlorine Gardens in 1965,which used the SEAC system to a designby Twist and Whitley of Cambridge.The building gained a RIBA award in 1970and, despite first impressions of anunremarkable structure, it has a certainpresence and is deftly placed in a slopingwell-wooded site.

International Influences, 1960 - 1980

The Science Library under construction in 1965, a strange cuckoo in a redbrick nest.

The contrast between the terraced streets and the Ashby tower is only exceededby that between the construction techniques of the 1960s and today.

Casson and Condor’s Microbiology building at the Royal Victoria Hospital,possibly too severe for today’s taste but a powerful statement of functionalform and the move to mechanised building components.

The Ashby tower remains one of the best high rise buildings in Belfast, atestament to its quality of design and construction.

Lanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute which faced Elmwood Avenue across theLisburn Road. Inconceivable today that such a building would be demolished.

Queen’s fully appreciates its architecturalheritage and takes active steps toconserve and celebrate it. The demolitionof Queen’s Elms, a terrace of seven housesdesigned by Thomas Jackson, to make wayfor the Students’ Union (1966), and ofLanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute to buildthe Medical Biology Centre (1968), isnow generally regretted. The outcry at thetime led to the formation of the UlsterArchitectural Heritage Society.

Queen’s was designated as the firstConservation Area in Northern Ireland in1987 and the University now owns over100 listed buildings. This rich architecturalheritage has created a unique central focusin what is a large and dispersed Universitycampus. Stewardship of such historicbuildings also presents a challenge inmeeting changing academic, as well asstatutory, needs. The University hasresponded sympathetically by replacingpoor quality buildings with new, moreimaginative structures and by sensitivelyadapting and restoring the listed buildings.

The key conservation projects to datehave been in University Square and theLanyon Building, particularly the restorationof the Great Hall. This project, and thereordering of the south wing to createThe Naughton Gallery, were completed in2000 to designs by Consarc Conservation,

architects. It won an RIBA award in 2001,in recognition of the transformation of asomewhat rundown space into a magnificentbanqueting hall at the heart of theUniversity. The Canada Room andCouncil Chamber (Robert McKinstry 1983),the Visitors’ Centre (Twenty-two over Seven1995) and Lanyon north (Hall BlackDouglas 2002) are all sensitive reworkingsof the original building, introducingcontemporary features and themes, yetrespecting the quality of Lanyon’soriginal design.

The requirements of the DisabilityDiscrimination Act have also offeredchallenges in relation to the provision ofuniversal access to, and within, theUniversity’s historic buildings. The WhitlaHall, University Square, the Lanyon buildingand the David Keir building are all goodexamples of sensitive adaptations. Queen’sis now regarded by the Environment andHeritage Service as an exemplar of goodpractice in access design.

Conservation

The Great Hall, finished at last to the quality Lanyon’s building deserves andmight have achieved had it not been for budget restrictions.

The oriel window re-opened,lighting the dais and top table.

Restoring the angels and trusses,allowed the craftmanship of theGreat Hall roof to be appreciated.

The warm richness of theCanada Room with its maple leaflight fittings.

Cherith McKinstry’s fine paintingdominates the relocated mainstaircase to the Canada Room andThe Naughton Gallery.

The Great Hall before restoration. Pink and white panelling, closed inoriel window, loss of dais, a revolving door and many other indignitiesmarred the original space.

Jackson’s ‘Queens Elms’, the original student accommodation demolishedin 1966, prompting the formation of UAHS and the start of ‘listing’ inNorthern Ireland.

The Elms Student Village – originally dominated by the high rise towers ofthe 60s and 70s, gradually being redeveloped as modern low-rise buildingsin a mature parkland setting.

The University continues to expand and atpresent is in the middle of a major capitaldevelopment programme.

Early aspirations for a Beaux Arts complexon Elmwood Avenue never came to fruition;the Students’ Union (Ostick and Williams1966) was built instead. The Union buildingwas to have been replaced in 2000 byLanyon II, an ambitious scheme won incompetition by Dixon Jones with BuildingDesign Partnership, but the project wasnever realised.

The Queen’s Elms halls of residence site onthe Malone Road was laid out in the late1960s and ‘70s, in a series of tower blocksdesigned by Cruickshank and Seward. Morerecently, as standards of studentaccommodation have changed, the site hasbeen largely redeveloped by RogerMcMichael and the Robinson PattersonPartnership (2000-2005), with modern low-rise buildings creating a well-landscapedresidential village of very high quality. Thefirst phase of the redevelopment, BeveridgeHall, was recognised by an award from theRoyal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA)in 2000.

Another new building, the McClay ResearchCentre for Pharmaceutical Sciences, wasawarded an RSUA Design Award in 2002.

The new Sonic Arts Research Centre inCloreen Park by Hall Black Douglas (2002)is a recent addition to the campus, but

sympathetic to its context. The musicalnotes carved into the brickwork express thefunction of the building, while the use ofred brick softens its character and links itwith the adjoining David Keir building.

The new Library commission was won byShepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbotfollowing a limited design competition,which also included submissions from FosterAssociates and Scott Tallon Walker. It iscurrently at design stage, but the montagesand models in the exhibition show how itwill relate to the campus and the adjoiningBotanic Gardens.

Today there is genuine public engagementin the planning process and moreopportunity for constructive dialogue andfor the general public to influence publicarchitecture. With a significant investmentsuch as the new Library project (£44m), itis important to engage the interested public.What ambitions are appropriate for Queen’sin the 21st century and what role canarchitecture play? Queen’s is nearly 160years old and is implementing an ambitiousprogramme for future development.Investment in its built infrastructure and acommitment to lasting quality will beguiding principles in guaranteeing that it iscommissioning the listed buildings of thefuture.

Aspirations, 1980 - 2005

The modern and innovative Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), 2002.

Musical notation embodied in thebrickwork, linking form and use.

SARC provides a flexible test bedfor acoustic research.

The new Library represents the biggest architectural challenge and opportunityfor many years - a balance of contextualism and contemporary expression?

Whitla Hall entrance hall – exquisite, bespoke detailing where every elementis a considered part of the composition, consciously creating somethingnew and fresh in the context of a campus which up until then had taken ahistoricist approach.

The main architectural events are the staircase and galleries punctuating theteaching areas with light filled spaces.

Builders, Bricks and Mortar BoardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University 1845-2005

Curator, Dawson StelfoxArchitect, Consarc Design Group

Builders, Bricks and MortarboardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University , 1845 - 2005

International Influences, 1960 – 1980

08.09.05

Client, Gary JebbDirector of Estates, QUB

08.09.05

Charles Lanyon is renowned as the architectof the iconic main building at Queen’s,although the drawings were executed byhis young assistant, William Henry Lynn.Lynn’s later career included the design ofthe library, the old Physics building and thebuildings which created the harmoniouscentral space that survived until the 1960s.This was a remarkable record over a sixty-year period.

After Lanyon and Lynn, other architectscontinued the tradition. These includedRobert Cochrane of Dublin, who designedthe Students’ Union and the Englisharchitect, W A Forsythe, who added thedining hall (now the Harty Room) andcompleted the south wing of the courtyard.The vision, shared by architects andUniversity alike, was that the Tudor Gothicarchitectural style, reflecting the medievalfoundations and long history of theuniversities of Oxford and Cambridge, wascentral to the credibility of the new college.It was also the appropriate metaphor for aseat of learning, in the same way asFlorentine palaces were the models forbanks and the great medieval Gothiccathedrals inspired Victorian church design.

Establishment, 1845 - 1925

The splendid façade of the Lanyon Building, as enduring an image for studentstoday as it was for the original students in 1849.

Staff and students celebrate Graduation Day c. 1886 at the front entrance.

Lynn’s drawings of the library, works of art in themselves and also the workingtools used to create the art of architecture.

Lynn’s library, a High Victorian gem, with University Square beyond, marredonly by the library tower rising behind.

Angels flanking the front entranceherald wisdom and righteousnesswithin.

The intricate hammer beam roof of the Harty Room, by W A Forsythe,1932-3, an evolution of the historic tradition rather than a break from it.

Gargoyles and polychromebrickwork details from the vibrantand robust High Victorian library.

The erosion of stonework addsto the sense of history which Lanyonno doubt would have found inkeeping with his original intent.

The Library cupola gives some senseof the complexity of the originallanterns planned for the mainbuilding but omitted in budget cuts.

This aerial view of Queens in 1952 shows the remarkable stylistic homogeneityof the main campus following Lynn’s expansion masterplan of 1911, whichsurvived until the 1960s.

Breaking with Tradition, 1926 - 1959This Tudor Gothic dominance wasfinally broken in 1926, firstly by theneo-Georgian Agriculture Building (nowGeosciences) on Elmwood Avenue andthen by the Sir William Whitla Hall, startedin 1939 although not completed until afterthe Second World War. Vice-ChancellorDr Fred Ogilvie broke with traditionand appointed the young John McGeagh,with Edward Maufe of London asconsultant. They created a truly modernbuilding in its severity and purity, with flatroof and bold massing, softened by brickand stone and fine sculpture. The buildingwas awarded a Royal Institute of BritishArchitects (RIBA) award in 1950.

John McGeagh was the leading architectfor new buildings at Queen’s for thenext ten years. These included the Geologybuilding (1949-54) in Elmwood Avenue,and the new Physics building (1955-62)opposite the south wing of the Lanyonbuilding.

The most ambitious commission of thisperiod was the David Keir building,designed by the English firm, Lanchesterand Lodge. This neo-Georgian buildingof 1950-59, sited between the StranmillisRoad and the Malone Road, carriedon the tradition introduced with theWhitla Hall.

This was a period of great expansion forthe University, and although there was adistinct break with the Tudor Gothictradition, the brick and stone character ofthe new buildings fitted in comfortably withthe domestic scale of the surrounding redbrick suburbs. All that quiet deference wassoon to be shattered.

The monumental neo-Georgian Modernism of the David Keir building –traditional materials but contemporary massing.

The severe horizontality of the Whitla Hall, softened by rich decorativedetail and warm materials. John McGeagh’s best work in his long associationwith the University.

John McGeagh’s Physics building is even more severe, but with the overallbulk carefully reduced in scale by layered massing of the various elements.

The cantilevered staircase of the entrance hall, aligned with the passagewaythrough to the quadrangle, is the Physics building’s most distinctive feature.

The Stranmillis Road façade of the David Keir Building, the horizontalityrelieved by the central entrance and staircase.

The dawn of the 1960s witnessed newinfluences being brought to bear on theUniversity’s architecture, most notably withthe Ashby building (1960-5) on theStranmillis Road, the Microbiology building(1961-5) at the Royal Victoria Hospital,and the Medical Biology Centre (1968) onthe Lisburn Road.

The Ashby building, by Cruickshank andSeward of Manchester, is a gleaming whitetower set against low pavilions withinlandscaped grounds, contrasting stronglywith the conservative David Keir buildingbuilt only a few years previously. It is crisplydetailed and the undoubted quality of bothdesign and construction has created a verymodern building that adds to the overallarchitectural character of the area, despitebeing completely different from itssurroundings.

The Microbiology building, by Sir HughCasson and Neville Condor, is one ofthe most striking modern buildings inBelfast; it is starker and less approachablethan the Ashby and such uncompromisingmodernity would perhaps prove lessacceptable today.

John McGeagh moved away from theneo-Georgian style to the more modernforms of the new library bookstack(1962-67). The Social Sciences building(now the Peter Froggatt Centre), designedby Donald Shanks and other Ulster

architects in 1962-66, and theAdministration building of 1971(Cruickshank and Seward) replaced theTudor Gothic buildings of the north andeast sides of the quadrangle. The useof red brick softens the impact of thesemodern buildings with their stronghorizontal emphasis.

The University’s first venture intoindustrialised buildings was the ScienceLibrary in Chlorine Gardens in 1965,which used the SEAC system to a designby Twist and Whitley of Cambridge.The building gained a RIBA award in 1970and, despite first impressions of anunremarkable structure, it has a certainpresence and is deftly placed in a slopingwell-wooded site.

International Influences, 1960 - 1980

The Science Library under construction in 1965, a strange cuckoo in a redbrick nest.

The contrast between the terraced streets and the Ashby tower is only exceededby that between the construction techniques of the 1960s and today.

The Ashby tower remains one of the best high rise buildings in Belfast, atestament to its quality of design and construction.

Lanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute which faced Elmwood Avenue across theLisburn Road. Inconceivable today that such a building would be demolished.

Queen’s fully appreciates its architecturalheritage and takes active steps toconserve and celebrate it. The demolitionof Queen’s Elms, a terrace of seven housesdesigned by Thomas Jackson, to make wayfor the Students’ Union (1966), and ofLanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute to buildthe Medical Biology Centre (1968), isnow generally regretted. The outcry at thetime led to the formation of the UlsterArchitectural Heritage Society.

Queen’s was designated as the firstConservation Area in Northern Ireland in1987 and the University now owns over100 listed buildings. This rich architecturalheritage has created a unique central focusin what is a large and dispersed Universitycampus. Stewardship of such historicbuildings also presents a challenge inmeeting changing academic, as well asstatutory, needs. The University hasresponded sympathetically by replacingpoor quality buildings with new, moreimaginative structures and by sensitivelyadapting and restoring the listed buildings.

The key conservation projects to datehave been in University Square and theLanyon Building, particularly the restorationof the Great Hall. This project, and thereordering of the south wing to createThe Naughton Gallery, were completed in2000 to designs by Consarc Conservation,

architects. It won an RIBA award in 2001,in recognition of the transformation of asomewhat rundown space into a magnificentbanqueting hall at the heart of theUniversity. The Canada Room andCouncil Chamber (Robert McKinstry 1983),the Visitors’ Centre (Twenty-two over Seven1995) and Lanyon north (Hall BlackDouglas 2002) are all sensitive reworkingsof the original building, introducingcontemporary features and themes, yetrespecting the quality of Lanyon’soriginal design.

The requirements of the DisabilityDiscrimination Act have also offeredchallenges in relation to the provision ofuniversal access to, and within, theUniversity’s historic buildings. The WhitlaHall, University Square, the Lanyon buildingand the David Keir building are all goodexamples of sensitive adaptations. Queen’sis now regarded by the Environment andHeritage Service as an exemplar of goodpractice in access design.

Conservation

The Great Hall, finished at last to the quality Lanyon’s building deserves andmight have achieved had it not been for budget restrictions.

The oriel window re-opened,lighting the dais and top table.

Restoring the angels and trusses,allowed the craftmanship of theGreat Hall roof to be appreciated.

The warm richness of theCanada Room with its maple leaflight fittings.

Cherith McKinstry’s fine paintingdominates the relocated mainstaircase to the Canada Room andThe Naughton Gallery.

The Great Hall before restoration. Pink and white panelling, closed inoriel window, loss of dais, a revolving door and many other indignitiesmarred the original space.

Jackson’s ‘Queens Elms’, the original student accommodation demolishedin 1966, prompting the formation of UAHS and the start of ‘listing’ inNorthern Ireland.

The Elms Student Village – originally dominated by the high rise towers ofthe 60s and 70s, gradually being redeveloped as modern low-rise buildingsin a mature parkland setting.

The University continues to expand and atpresent is in the middle of a major capitaldevelopment programme.

Early aspirations for a Beaux Arts complexon Elmwood Avenue never came to fruition;the Students’ Union (Ostick and Williams1966) was built instead. The Union buildingwas to have been replaced in 2000 byLanyon II, an ambitious scheme won incompetition by Dixon Jones with BuildingDesign Partnership, but the project wasnever realised.

The Queen’s Elms halls of residence site onthe Malone Road was laid out in the late1960s and ‘70s, in a series of tower blocksdesigned by Cruickshank and Seward. Morerecently, as standards of studentaccommodation have changed, the site hasbeen largely redeveloped by RogerMcMichael and the Robinson PattersonPartnership (2000-2005), with modern low-rise buildings creating a well-landscapedresidential village of very high quality. Thefirst phase of the redevelopment, BeveridgeHall, was recognised by an award from theRoyal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA)in 2000.

Another new building, the McClay ResearchCentre for Pharmaceutical Sciences, wasawarded an RSUA Design Award in 2002.

The new Sonic Arts Research Centre inCloreen Park by Hall Black Douglas (2002)is a recent addition to the campus, but

sympathetic to its context. The musicalnotes carved into the brickwork express thefunction of the building, while the use ofred brick softens its character and links itwith the adjoining David Keir building.

The new Library commission was won byShepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbotfollowing a limited design competition,which also included submissions from FosterAssociates and Scott Tallon Walker. It iscurrently at design stage, but the montagesand models in the exhibition show how itwill relate to the campus and the adjoiningBotanic Gardens.

Today there is genuine public engagementin the planning process and moreopportunity for constructive dialogue andfor the general public to influence publicarchitecture. With a significant investmentsuch as the new Library project (£44m), itis important to engage the interested public.What ambitions are appropriate for Queen’sin the 21st century and what role canarchitecture play? Queen’s is nearly 160years old and is implementing an ambitiousprogramme for future development.Investment in its built infrastructure and acommitment to lasting quality will beguiding principles in guaranteeing that it iscommissioning the listed buildings of thefuture.

Aspirations, 1980 - 2005

The modern and innovative Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), 2002.

Musical notation embodied in thebrickwork, linking form and use.

SARC provides a flexible test bedfor acoustic research.

The new Library represents the biggest architectural challenge and opportunityfor many years - a balance of contextualism and contemporary expression?

Whitla Hall entrance hall – exquisite, bespoke detailing where every elementis a considered part of the composition, consciously creating somethingnew and fresh in the context of a campus which up until then had taken ahistoricist approach.

The main architectural events are the staircase and galleries punctuating theteaching areas with light filled spaces.

Builders, Bricks and Mortar BoardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University 1845-2005

Curator, Dawson StelfoxArchitect, Consarc Design Group

Builders, Bricks and MortarboardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University , 1845 - 2005

Conservation

08.09.05

Client, Gary JebbDirector of Estates, QUB

08.09.05

Charles Lanyon is renowned as the architectof the iconic main building at Queen’s,although the drawings were executed byhis young assistant, William Henry Lynn.Lynn’s later career included the design ofthe library, the old Physics building and thebuildings which created the harmoniouscentral space that survived until the 1960s.This was a remarkable record over a sixty-year period.

After Lanyon and Lynn, other architectscontinued the tradition. These includedRobert Cochrane of Dublin, who designedthe Students’ Union and the Englisharchitect, W A Forsythe, who added thedining hall (now the Harty Room) andcompleted the south wing of the courtyard.The vision, shared by architects andUniversity alike, was that the Tudor Gothicarchitectural style, reflecting the medievalfoundations and long history of theuniversities of Oxford and Cambridge, wascentral to the credibility of the new college.It was also the appropriate metaphor for aseat of learning, in the same way asFlorentine palaces were the models forbanks and the great medieval Gothiccathedrals inspired Victorian church design.

Establishment, 1845 - 1925

The splendid façade of the Lanyon Building, as enduring an image for studentstoday as it was for the original students in 1849.

Staff and students celebrate Graduation Day c. 1886 at the front entrance.

Lynn’s drawings of the library, works of art in themselves and also the workingtools used to create the art of architecture.

Lynn’s library, a High Victorian gem, with University Square beyond, marredonly by the library tower rising behind.

Angels flanking the front entranceherald wisdom and righteousnesswithin.

The intricate hammer beam roof of the Harty Room, by W A Forsythe,1932-3, an evolution of the historic tradition rather than a break from it.

Gargoyles and polychromebrickwork details from the vibrantand robust High Victorian library.

The erosion of stonework addsto the sense of history which Lanyonno doubt would have found inkeeping with his original intent.

The Library cupola gives some senseof the complexity of the originallanterns planned for the mainbuilding but omitted in budget cuts.

This aerial view of Queens in 1952 shows the remarkable stylistic homogeneityof the main campus following Lynn’s expansion masterplan of 1911, whichsurvived until the 1960s.

Breaking with Tradition, 1926 - 1959This Tudor Gothic dominance wasfinally broken in 1926, firstly by theneo-Georgian Agriculture Building (nowGeosciences) on Elmwood Avenue andthen by the Sir William Whitla Hall, startedin 1939 although not completed until afterthe Second World War. Vice-ChancellorDr Fred Ogilvie broke with traditionand appointed the young John McGeagh,with Edward Maufe of London asconsultant. They created a truly modernbuilding in its severity and purity, with flatroof and bold massing, softened by brickand stone and fine sculpture. The buildingwas awarded a Royal Institute of BritishArchitects (RIBA) award in 1950.

John McGeagh was the leading architectfor new buildings at Queen’s for thenext ten years. These included the Geologybuilding (1949-54) in Elmwood Avenue,and the new Physics building (1955-62)opposite the south wing of the Lanyonbuilding.

The most ambitious commission of thisperiod was the David Keir building,designed by the English firm, Lanchesterand Lodge. This neo-Georgian buildingof 1950-59, sited between the StranmillisRoad and the Malone Road, carriedon the tradition introduced with theWhitla Hall.

This was a period of great expansion forthe University, and although there was adistinct break with the Tudor Gothictradition, the brick and stone character ofthe new buildings fitted in comfortably withthe domestic scale of the surrounding redbrick suburbs. All that quiet deference wassoon to be shattered.

The monumental neo-Georgian Modernism of the David Keir building –traditional materials but contemporary massing.

The severe horizontality of the Whitla Hall, softened by rich decorativedetail and warm materials. John McGeagh’s best work in his long associationwith the University.

John McGeagh’s Physics building is even more severe, but with the overallbulk carefully reduced in scale by layered massing of the various elements.

The cantilevered staircase of the entrance hall, aligned with the passagewaythrough to the quadrangle, is the Physics building’s most distinctive feature.

The Stranmillis Road façade of the David Keir Building, the horizontalityrelieved by the central entrance and staircase.

The dawn of the 1960s witnessed newinfluences being brought to bear on theUniversity’s architecture, most notably withthe Ashby building (1960-5) on theStranmillis Road, the Microbiology building(1961-5) at the Royal Victoria Hospital,and the Medical Biology Centre (1968) onthe Lisburn Road.

The Ashby building, by Cruickshank andSeward of Manchester, is a gleaming whitetower set against low pavilions withinlandscaped grounds, contrasting stronglywith the conservative David Keir buildingbuilt only a few years previously. It is crisplydetailed and the undoubted quality of bothdesign and construction has created a verymodern building that adds to the overallarchitectural character of the area, despitebeing completely different from itssurroundings.

The Microbiology building, by Sir HughCasson and Neville Condor, is one ofthe most striking modern buildings inBelfast; it is starker and less approachablethan the Ashby and such uncompromisingmodernity would perhaps prove lessacceptable today.

John McGeagh moved away from theneo-Georgian style to the more modernforms of the new library bookstack(1962-67). The Social Sciences building(now the Peter Froggatt Centre), designedby Donald Shanks and other Ulster

architects in 1962-66, and theAdministration building of 1971(Cruickshank and Seward) replaced theTudor Gothic buildings of the north andeast sides of the quadrangle. The useof red brick softens the impact of thesemodern buildings with their stronghorizontal emphasis.

The University’s first venture intoindustrialised buildings was the ScienceLibrary in Chlorine Gardens in 1965,which used the SEAC system to a designby Twist and Whitley of Cambridge.The building gained a RIBA award in 1970and, despite first impressions of anunremarkable structure, it has a certainpresence and is deftly placed in a slopingwell-wooded site.

International Influences, 1960 - 1980

The Science Library under construction in 1965, a strange cuckoo in a redbrick nest.

The contrast between the terraced streets and the Ashby tower is only exceededby that between the construction techniques of the 1960s and today.

The Ashby tower remains one of the best high rise buildings in Belfast, atestament to its quality of design and construction.

Lanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute which faced Elmwood Avenue across theLisburn Road. Inconceivable today that such a building would be demolished.

Queen’s fully appreciates its architecturalheritage and takes active steps toconserve and celebrate it. The demolitionof Queen’s Elms, a terrace of seven housesdesigned by Thomas Jackson, to make wayfor the Students’ Union (1966), and ofLanyon’s Deaf and Dumb Institute to buildthe Medical Biology Centre (1968), isnow generally regretted. The outcry at thetime led to the formation of the UlsterArchitectural Heritage Society.

Queen’s was designated as the firstConservation Area in Northern Ireland in1987 and the University now owns over100 listed buildings. This rich architecturalheritage has created a unique central focusin what is a large and dispersed Universitycampus. Stewardship of such historicbuildings also presents a challenge inmeeting changing academic, as well asstatutory, needs. The University hasresponded sympathetically by replacingpoor quality buildings with new, moreimaginative structures and by sensitivelyadapting and restoring the listed buildings.

The key conservation projects to datehave been in University Square and theLanyon Building, particularly the restorationof the Great Hall. This project, and thereordering of the south wing to createThe Naughton Gallery, were completed in2000 to designs by Consarc Conservation,

architects. It won an RIBA award in 2001,in recognition of the transformation of asomewhat rundown space into a magnificentbanqueting hall at the heart of theUniversity. The Canada Room andCouncil Chamber (Robert McKinstry 1983),the Visitors’ Centre (Twenty-two over Seven1995) and Lanyon north (Hall BlackDouglas 2002) are all sensitive reworkingsof the original building, introducingcontemporary features and themes, yetrespecting the quality of Lanyon’soriginal design.

The requirements of the DisabilityDiscrimination Act have also offeredchallenges in relation to the provision ofuniversal access to, and within, theUniversity’s historic buildings. The WhitlaHall, University Square, the Lanyon buildingand the David Keir building are all goodexamples of sensitive adaptations. Queen’sis now regarded by the Environment andHeritage Service as an exemplar of goodpractice in access design.

Conservation

The Great Hall, finished at last to the quality Lanyon’s building deserves andmight have achieved had it not been for budget restrictions.

The oriel window re-opened,lighting the dais and top table.

Restoring the angels and trusses,allowed the craftmanship of theGreat Hall roof to be appreciated.

The warm richness of theCanada Room with its maple leaflight fittings.

Cherith McKinstry’s fine paintingdominates the relocated mainstaircase to the Canada Room andThe Naughton Gallery.

The Great Hall before restoration. Pink and white panelling, closed inoriel window, loss of dais, a revolving door and many other indignitiesmarred the original space.

Jackson’s ‘Queens Elms’, the original student accommodation demolishedin 1966, prompting the formation of UAHS and the start of ‘listing’ inNorthern Ireland.

The Elms Student Village – originally dominated by the high rise towers ofthe 60s and 70s, gradually being redeveloped as modern low-rise buildingsin a mature parkland setting.

The University continues to expand and atpresent is in the middle of a major capitaldevelopment programme.

Early aspirations for a Beaux Arts complexon Elmwood Avenue never came to fruition;the Students’ Union (Ostick and Williams1966) was built instead. The Union buildingwas to have been replaced in 2000 byLanyon II, an ambitious scheme won incompetition by Dixon Jones with BuildingDesign Partnership, but the project wasnever realised.

The Queen’s Elms halls of residence site onthe Malone Road was laid out in the late1960s and ‘70s, in a series of tower blocksdesigned by Cruickshank and Seward. Morerecently, as standards of studentaccommodation have changed, the site hasbeen largely redeveloped by RogerMcMichael and the Robinson PattersonPartnership (2000-2005), with modern low-rise buildings creating a well-landscapedresidential village of very high quality. Thefirst phase of the redevelopment, BeveridgeHall, was recognised by an award from theRoyal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA)in 2000.

Another new building, the McClay ResearchCentre for Pharmaceutical Sciences, wasawarded an RSUA Design Award in 2002.

The new Sonic Arts Research Centre inCloreen Park by Hall Black Douglas (2002)is a recent addition to the campus, but

sympathetic to its context. The musicalnotes carved into the brickwork express thefunction of the building, while the use ofred brick softens its character and links itwith the adjoining David Keir building.

The new Library commission was won byShepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbotfollowing a limited design competition,which also included submissions from FosterAssociates and Scott Tallon Walker. It iscurrently at design stage, but the montagesand models in the exhibition show how itwill relate to the campus and the adjoiningBotanic Gardens.

Today there is genuine public engagementin the planning process and moreopportunity for constructive dialogue andfor the general public to influence publicarchitecture. With a significant investmentsuch as the new Library project (£44m), itis important to engage the interested public.What ambitions are appropriate for Queen’sin the 21st century and what role canarchitecture play? Queen’s is nearly 160years old and is implementing an ambitiousprogramme for future development.Investment in its built infrastructure and acommitment to lasting quality will beguiding principles in guaranteeing that it iscommissioning the listed buildings of thefuture.

Aspirations, 1980 - 2005

The modern and innovative Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), 2002.

Musical notation embodied in thebrickwork, linking form and use.

SARC provides a flexible test bedfor acoustic research.

The clean, cool, machine style of the McClay Research Centre byTodd Architects (2002) reflects the high tech advanced research facilitiesit provides.

The new Library represents the biggest architectural challenge and opportunityfor many years - a balance of contextualism and contemporary expression?

Whitla Hall entrance hall – exquisite, bespoke detailing where every elementis a considered part of the composition, consciously creating somethingnew and fresh in the context of a campus which up until then had taken ahistoricist approach.

The main architectural events are the staircase and galleries punctuating theteaching areas with light filled spaces.

Builders, Bricks and Mortar BoardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University 1845-2005

Curator, Dawson StelfoxArchitect, Consarc Design Group

Builders, Bricks and MortarboardsThe Architecture of Queen’s University , 1845 - 2005

Aspirations 1980 – 2005

08.09.05

Client, Gary JebbDirector of Estates, QUB

08.09.05