Hilda Besse Building Including Stepped Plinth And Paved Approach From West, St Antony'S College

The Hilda Besse Building at St Antony's College is a hall and common rooms in a free-standing block, commissioned in 1960 with final design completed in 1966 and construction between 1967 and 1971. The architects were Howell, Killick, Partridge and Amis, with John Partridge as partner in charge. The engineers were Harris and Sutherland, and David Milnaric was the interior designer responsible for carpets and loose fittings in the common rooms.

The entire structure and cladding are formed from pre-cast units, incorporating projecting window units. Structural elements are finished with fine acid-etching, while cladding panels feature a larger Cornish granite exposed aggregate. Internal walls are constructed from buff concrete brickwork laid in 5-inch courses. Brick paviours on the ground floor extend outwards to form an outdoor plinth. The roofs of the hall and common rooms are pre-cast, post-tensioned diagrids with timber undersides to diamond-shaped roof lights. In-situ concrete floors are used throughout.

The building is rectangular in plan and set on a plinth reached by steps on all sides, with a paved walkway approaching from the west. The design divides the space between informal circulation areas and grander formal spaces. The ground floor contains a foyer separated by glazed screens from the buttery, allowing views through transparent glazed walls on all sides to the gardens. Small dining rooms are positioned at the rear on the eastern side. Monumental stairs rise from the foyer to the hall and common rooms and descend to the basement. The hall rises through two floors with kitchens adjoining it on the first floor, served by a stair and lift bay on the north side. On the upper floor are senior and general common rooms entered from a gallery overlooking the hall.

The exterior features pre-cast bays with projecting window units at upper levels designed to throw off rainwater and minimise weathering. Hall windows have blind panels above, while common rooms feature strip windows below. Central projecting stair bays on the south and north elevations are lit at corners only. The ground floor is set back and almost entirely glazed, supporting the upper floors on octagonal columns with large splayed cross-heads set diagonally. The alternating pattern of columns and set-back frame deliberately expresses the structure, with narrow window slits between frame and panels and pronounced jointing, giving a Japanese feeling appropriate to a college with strong eastern connections.

Inside, the structure is visibly expressed throughout. The ground floor buttery is divided from the foyer by glazed screens while dining rooms are enclosed by solid partitions. Stairs feature open treads with a slightly rounded profile and robust balustrades. The hall and common rooms contain a grid of roof lights set diagonally to the main frame with contrasting timber reveals incorporating artificial lighting. The foyer contains bronzes of Anthony of Padua by Mestrovic and of M and Mme Besse by Oscar Nemon.

The design reflects the historic tradition of Oxford college halls from medieval times through to Jacobsen's St Catherine's of the early 1960s while meeting modern functional requirements. It acknowledges that traditional halls were inward looking and almost unlit, but the space is punctuated by splayed window units capturing framed views of the surrounding landscape and admitting light while retaining the impact and strength of the walls. The ground floor, treated as an undercroft, features glazed wall panels admitting light and views in both directions, facilitating intended future phases.

This was the first phase of a larger intended composition with study bedrooms and lecture rooms, though as built it is physically distinct and complete. The building received the RIBA Architecture Award and the Concrete Society Award in 1971. Contemporary comment praised it as "beautifully detailed and a tour de force in articulation" with a striking effect from the wide span open coffered ceiling of the dining hall, leaving "an impression of elegance and amenity." It was noted for its "insistence on expression, on house style, and historical overtones," representing a very formal, monumental building that grasps the fundamentals of construction with clarity and success. It is considered perhaps the ultimate expression of the HKPA idiom of prefabricated post and lintel construction and among their finest works.

St Antony's College was founded in 1948 by French shipping magnate M Antonin Besse, and the hall is named after his wife. The College occupies buildings originally designed in 1866-8 by Charles Buckeridge for the Society of the Holy Trinity, with a chapel added by J L Pearson in 1891-4 which now houses the library. The original buildings and chapel are listed Grade II.

Howell, Killick and Partridge established their practice in 1959, joined in 1961 by S F Amis, after coming second in the 1959 competition for Churchill College Cambridge. They had previously worked together for the London County Council on the Roehampton Estate from 1952. The St Antony's project was one of several university schemes produced by the practice in the early 1960s, including Ashley and Strathcona Buildings at Birmingham University (1961-2), a scheme for St Anne's Oxford of which the Wolfson and Rayne buildings were constructed with the Gatehouse added in 1965-6, and the Houses for Visiting Mathematicians at Warwick University (1968-70).