School Of Art, Birmingham City University

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 07/03/2013

SF 0687 SE 29/28 5104 21.1.70

MARGARET STREET City Centre B3 School of Art, Birmingham City University

(First listed as College of Arts and Crafts; and Art and Design Annexe, Birmingham Polytechnic at date of most recent amendment)

I

1881-85, by Martin and Chamberlain and extended along Cornwall Street in 1893. Brick and terracotta with stone dressings and some tile decoration and with mosaic in the central gable; tiled roof with bracketted eaves cornice and decorative ridge tiles. In a Gothic style. Three and 4 storeys; 5 bays, the central and outer ones all gabled though differently in width and height, a facade as brilliantly successful as it is wholly asymmetrical. The centre bay with the gabled entrance arch flanked by pinnacles and carrying a big pointed arched opening within the gable above. The door behind gates and up a steep flight of steps within a room with arches carried on granite columns and a flat panelled wooden ceiling. Ground floor windows all with shouldered and moulded heads. First floor windows all broad lancets in various groupings; then, on the left a roundel by Barlow of Leicester with splended foliage in an Art Nouveau style, a band of trefoil headed lancets with roundels below and, on the right, a big canted bay window carried on a tripartite buttress rising up from basement level and with a triplet of lancets above. Excellent floral details in the spandrels. Inside, too, with excellent detailing everywhere including mosaic floors, stained glass windows, fine metalwork and joinery and carved capitals. The studios on the top floor large and functionally constructed with big iron arches with quatrefoils. On the return, the 9 bays of the extension differ from the 5 bays of the original in having figures (by Benjamin Creswick) rather than foliage in the tympana of the arches.

Listing NGR: SP0666087027