Engineering Building, Leicester University
Major’s Walk, Leicester
1960–3
James Stirling and James Gowan
Engineer: Frank Newby of Felix Samuely and Partners
Listed grade II*, 30 March 1993
This is a building of international significance, which defined modernism’s late-1950s shift towards a greater individualism and gave it a truly British character. Leicester eschewed Scandinavian influences for liver red Accrington brick and Dutch tiles, with aluminium-framed patent glazing, an updating of the industrial architecture of England’s nineteenth-century cities. Such a use of Victorian elements combined with constructivist forms and a twelve-storey tower is dramatic.
Leicester has the tightest site of the post-war universities, and the architects had to squeeze in workshops for heavy machinery, laboratories, lecture theatres, and a 30.5m (100ft) water tank to serve hydraulic experiments. The workshops, covering two-thirds of the area, had to have north-light glazing, but the plot does not run north–south. So while the building uses its site efficiently, the glazing runs at a diagonal, developed as a low-cost solution by Newby but denoted by wilful, lozenge-shaped terminals devised by Gowan. The interior is overwhelming because of the glowing, translucent light that results.
Comparisons can be made with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax complex at Racine, Wisconsin, the saturated light of the large, single-storey interiors similarly contrasted with their banded towers. The shapely forms of Leicester’s tower, thrust out on the stepping of two projecting lecture theatres, are credited to Stirling, again as refined by Newby.
The synthesis between Stirling and Gowan’s contrasting approaches gives the surprisingly skinny building its tautness. The partnership collapsed soon afterwards and, despite their subsequent individual achievements, for most critics this remains the sublime monument of the new brutalism. Perhaps the true partnership was between the architects and their engineer.
This was first published in 'England's Post-War Listed Buildings' by Elain Harwood and James O. Davies. Read a review of the book and interview with Elain Harwood here.
Read other extracts from the book:
Featured articles and news
Using QSAND to measure the performance of disaster response.
What U-values are, why they matter and how they are calculated.
Planning for a more bio-resourceful future
The need to ensure that we plan for all aspects of our bio-economy
BSRIA calls on government to reach deeper into the causes of pollution.
George Demetri brings a whole new level of technical knowledge to Designing Buildings Wiki.
Quality professionals need to take an active role in driving the completion process forwards.
The innovations needed to move from rhetoric to realisation.
Gresham's School Britten Building
Creating a sense of place, with radically-low running costs and the highest comfort levels.
A conversation between David Mitchell and Caitlin DeSilvey.
A quick guide to brick sizes.
The Union Street development in Southwark was a passion, as well as a business endeavour.
Do our water quality standards demonstrate to the public that their supply is clean?
A third of practitioners do not have easy access to the knowledge they need.