Canon's House

Canon's House

Offices for Lloyds Bank, designed between 1986 and 1987, and constructed in two phases from 1988 to 1991. Arup Associates served as architects and engineers with Donald Mackay Ferguson as lead designer, Peter Swann Associates as landscape architects, and Bovis Construction as management contractor.

The building is a Post-Modernist design employing classical vocabulary. It consists of concrete-framed structures with glazed curtain walls, distinguished by characteristic colonnaded façades that are independent of the structural frame. These colonnades incorporate precast concrete columns and components with tooled, acid-washed or bush-hammered finishes, rising from wide piers of St Maxim limestone. The building sits on a plinth of Euville limestone and stands on a podium of split-faced reconstituted granite blockwork.

The site occupies Canon's Marsh at the confluence of the Frome and Avon rivers. The plan is organised around a series of axes, with a circular drum forming the main entrance as the central focal point. From this, two office wings radiate outward. The axis bisects the east wing to align with a listed Grade II crane on the harbour's edge, which forms the centre of a 60-metre-radius amphitheatre. The ground level of the amphitheatre was lowered by 1.2 metres, rising in semi-circular steps to meet the concave façade of the building.

Phase 1, to the east, contains a crescent-shaped office range that encloses the amphitheatre to the south-east. Phase 2 to the west is a circular drum 80 metres in diameter, with a landscaped central courtyard. The two ranges are linked by a lower central entrance block with circular projections to the north (forming the main entrance) and south (containing the staff cafeteria).

The three-storey offices feature abstracted classical façades with rusticated stone ground floors surmounted by paired columns forming double-height colonnades. The detailing is stripped back, with a notional capital linking the columns and a void entablature; instead, steel members rise to support a leaded canopy. Windows on the ground floor have iroko timber frames; upper floors are fully glazed curtain walls with slender aluminium frames. The offices are effectively raised from external ground level on the podium, removing them from direct public view. Low parapets cap the flat roofs.

The concave elevation of the eastern block is the principal façade, facing the amphitheatre. It is symmetrical with a bowed, slightly projecting centrepiece. The ground floor contains a recessed doorway with timber double doors with slender glazing bars. Above, paired piers of the colonnade shift to become six single columns. The parapet steps up and is surmounted by a pyramidal lantern. Return walls are blind, clad in limestone, with a central projecting stair tower featuring double doors to the ground floor, glazing to upper floors, and a turret. The western rotunda is similarly detailed with a continuous colonnade incorporating occasional blind bays.

The central entrance is recessed between the convex forms of the two office ranges. It is a low circular drum, blind, with a wide doorway and conical lantern. To the south on axis is the staff canteen, also a circular drum with full-height windows and a conical leaded roof. This has an external courtyard enclosed by a low wall and railings with adjoining corner turrets.

The main entrance is a circular, top-lit hall containing the waiting area, with reception counter and visitor's bathrooms at the periphery. The floor is laid in terrazzo tiling in a radiating geometric pattern, with circulation routes tiled with marginal detailing.

Central to the eastern office range is a full-height atrium with conical lantern. The floor replicates the radiating pattern of the main entrance in white shades with marginal detailing. The atrium provides access to the north and south wings, arranged over three floors with a central top-lit galleria. Walkways are supported on paired steel columns with steel balustrades with timber handrails. The ground floor contains various enclosed offices with support services including telephone exchange, post rooms and printing services. Parallel office floors are 9 metres deep. Ceilings have deep ribs with grooves for demountable partitions. Lightweight partitioning encloses some areas. Floors contain 459-millimetre voids to accommodate cabling and air conditioning equipment. Within the stair towers at either end are cantilevering spiral stairs with steel balustrades and timber handrails.

Within the western office rotunda, office floors line the outer perimeter with walkways facing the internal courtyard. The floor plan projects into the courtyard at the entrance, containing an elliptical steel dogleg stair. The internal elevation is a fully glazed curtain wall.

The staff canteen is a circular space with a raised circular seating platform enclosed by timber balustrade, with further seating round the edges. Pillars support a ceiling around the periphery, above which is a glazed clerestory. The conical roof is supported on timber posts and rafters resting on a suspended steel framework with tension cables.

A war memorial with dedicatory plaque and panels inscribed with names of those who fell in the First and Second World Wars is present. An adjacent panel notes that it was moved from the Lloyds TSB Head Office at 71 Lombard Street, London, when that building closed in 2004.

A service void beneath the building contains heat pumps which use harbour water to provide heating in winter and cooling in summer.

The building stands on a rusticated granite podium with steel railings, integrated steps and ventilation shafts. A plaque on the central projection of the principal elevation is inscribed "1990 / THE SURROUNDING PUBLIC AMPHITHEATRE / WAS CONSTRUCTED BY LLOYDS BANK WITH THE / ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE CITY COUNCIL FOR / THE BENEFIT OF THE PEOPLE OF BRISTOL". A second small plaque on the north return elevation records the architectural firm's name. A series of granite blocks and steps form tiered seating along the building line beneath the podium, stepping down to the lower amphitheatre.