Enfield Technical College

Enfield Technical College, Queensway, Ponders End

Former technical college and technical school built between 1938 and 1941 by the Middlesex County Architect's Department under Chief Architect W T Curtis and Education Architect H W Burchett. The building comprises a concrete frame clad in red brick and tile with flat roofs, arranged on a largely symmetrical plan with broad ranges flanking a central staircase tower, two parallel ranges to the sides, and a central hall (now the entrance to the library) with courtyards to front and back. The main building is principally three storeys with a six-storey tower. A single-storey gymnasium stands to the side, and a single-storey 1990s recreation hall is positioned to the rear.

The design shows strong Scandinavian influences evident in the tile patterns, mouldings, glazing and proportions. The north-facing entrance front extends across 14 bays either side of the central tower, which is entirely glazed. The 13 bays to either side feature smaller horizontal leaded windows on a slightly projecting ground floor. Large upper windows with metal glazing bars are set between a highly stylised giant order of tiled engaged columns that read as great ribs or fins running the length of the building. The curved brick drums forming the outer walls to the entrance have similar tiled treatment with curved corners. A projecting concrete canopy inset with round lights shelters original metal double doors set within similarly glazed surrounds with toplight above. Double-height continuous glazing in metal window surrounds extends along the sides of the building. The end returns to the main front repeat the giant tiled order.

The front courtyard elevation features a round drum extending into it with three storeys and continuous bands of windows. Upper-floor windows follow a strongly horizontal pattern, repeated in the two- and four-light windows found to either side. The ground floor is more continuously glazed, with double metal doors opening into the finely landscaped courtyard. A single-storey former workshop range to the rear was converted to seminar rooms. This range was remodelled as classrooms in 1992 with new windows set in large areas of brickwork. A recreation hall was attached circa 1996, complementary in design though not of special interest itself.

The ground-floor entrance hall features cream tiled columns extending into the drum noted above, with coved ceilings. Corridors with classrooms and offices line either side on the ground and second floors. The former hall in the centre of the building has been adapted as the entrance to the library, which occupies the entire first floor and has been opened up between columns to create an open-plan working environment. The hall retains its coved ceiling with octagonal mouldings and fluted proscenium surround. The gymnasium comprises five bays of nearly double height, with the central three bays fully glazed between large tiled engaged drums repeating the ribs or fins pattern found on the north facade. Attached retaining walls flank either side of the main entrance door.

The interiors were completed only after 1945. Enfield Technical College and School grew from a social centre and institution for evening classes founded by Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, inventor of the incandescent light bulb and, as a partner in Edison and Swan, a major local employer. In 1905 the institution was taken over by Middlesex County Council, which in 1911 built the building now called the Swan Annexe in Ponder's End High Street. By the 1930s that building had become too small for the growing number of apprentices studying at the school (for 13 to 16 year-olds) or attending the college by day release or evening classes. In 1962 the School, renamed in 1959 the Ambrose Fleming Grammar Technical School in honour of the pioneer of the thermionic valve, moved to a separate site. The College was reorganised in 1967 into faculties of arts and technology, and since becoming part of Middlesex Polytechnic and subsequently Middlesex University has increasingly specialised in social sciences.

The Middlesex County Council Architect's Department, under Curtis and Burchett, began designing schools and college buildings in a Dudokian style from 1932, choosing brick-clad concrete forms as a quick, low-cost and attractive building method appropriate to British conditions. The style was refined through a series of primary and secondary schools, but this building represents among their most ambitious and modern compositions, with Swedish references evident in the implied order and use of vertical tilework. It is included among their most ambitious and prestigious buildings. Although not published due to the outbreak of war, it was nevertheless completed much as originally intended.