Carnegie Building, 121 Donegall Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12 5JL

A two-and-one-storey-over-basement red-brick former Carnegie library, now office, in the Tudoresque style. Built around 1905 to designs by Graeme-Watt & Tulloch, it stands on the north side of Donegall Road at Roseland Place, southwest of Belfast city centre.

The building is gabled and planned on an L-shape with an oblique single-storey porch set into the re-entrant angle. A two-and-single-storey wing extends to the northwest, and canted bays project to the front and southeast elevations. The pitched natural slate roof features terracotta ridge tiles and leaded valleys. Raised stone verges with kneelers support ball finials, and an octagonal vented cupola rises from the ridgeline, topped with a ball finial and weathervane. A tall red-brick chimneystack with sandstone dressings is crowned by a terracotta pot. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods with hoppers and square downpipes project from a sandstone eaves course.

The walling is Flemish-bonded red-brick with sandstone dressings, a moulded base course, and an ashlar platband at sill levels. Windows throughout are mullioned and transomed in various styles with leaded and clear glass.

The L-shaped block faces southwest. The right bay contains three bipartite transomed and mullioned windows to the first floor, all gabled. The ground floor features a canted bay to the right and a tripartite mullioned window to the left. A projecting gabled bay to the left has a tripartite stepped stairwell window to its right, two pairs of windows to the left, and three windows to the ground floor. The southeast elevation displays a mullioned window to the left.

The porch to the re-entrant angle is accessed by three stone steps, the top step laid with terracotta and cream mosaic tiles. It contains a double-leaf nine-panelled timber door with an equilateral-headed transom light in a sandstone ashlar surround featuring ornately carved spandrel panels. The porch is framed by octagonal brick columns surmounted by a decorative pierced sandstone parapet. Masonry steps to the lower ground level are accessed to the left of the porch and are enclosed by decorative wrought-iron railings with a latch gate.

The northwest elevation is abutted by the two-and-single-storey wing. The two-storey central gabled block has two windows to the ground floor. The southwest and northeast elevations each display three sets of triple mullioned windows to the first floor and are abutted at ground floor by a single-storey castellated block, also three sets of triple mullioned windows wide. The northeast (rear) elevation divides generally into four sections, each topped by a gable. The section to the right is wide with two openings to first and ground floors. The other sections each have a single opening to both floors, with timber-sheeted entrance doors alternating with windows at ground floor. An extension to the right includes a return. A timber-sheeted and glazed door is positioned centrally at lower ground level.

The southeast gable features a parapetted canted bay to the ground floor with paired mullioned windows, surmounted by a corbel cornice and brick parapet. Above this rises a large fifteen-paned transomed and mullioned window to the first floor with inscribed sandstone panels reading "Belfast Public Library" to the top, "Carnegie Branch" to the left, and "Donegall Road" to the right. Platbands frame a small rectangular apex opening.

The building is corner-sited between Roseland Place and Utility Street at Donegall Road. City Hospital Train Station and a terrace of late twentieth-century two-storey houses lie to the south. Roseland Place to the north has a terrace of mid-twentieth-century two-storey houses and a red-brick Church Hall. Roseland Place terminates in a high masonry wall and steel gates enclosing a large cleared building site to the west of the former library, also accessed via Utility Street. Utility Street is partially cobbled. Steps from the public footpath lead to the porch; the area to either side is enclosed by decorative wrought-iron railings.