Ormeau Road Library, Ormeau Road Embankment, Belfast, County Antrim, BT7 3GG

Ormeau Road Library

A detached, single-storey, double-height Modernist library in redbrick, built around 1959 to the designs of J.H. Swann FRIBA, Belfast City Architect. The building won an RIBA award in 1959 and remains an important example of Irish modernist civic architecture. Swann also designed the Art College in York Street and the crematorium at Roselawn Cemetery.

The library is square on plan and located on a corner site to the south of Ormeau Embankment and to the west of Ormeau Road, overlooking the Lagan to the north, set within its own enclosed site. The building has a flat felt-lined roof that overhangs all elevations with timber fascia and steel rainwater goods. The walls are redbrick laid in stretcher bond.

The east front elevation is asymmetrical and dominated by a series of eight double-height square-headed windows to the left half, each window divided by painted concrete mullions and set back below the overhanging roof. These are 12-pane steel windows with concrete sills. At the centre is a double-height entrance flanked by a pair of projecting redbrick walls with overhanging roof detail. The original polished hardwood glazed entrance screen features double-leaf glazed doors opening onto a concrete tiled platform, steps and universal access ramp. The remaining north end of the front elevation is a blank redbrick wall with its roof stepped slightly below that of the rest of the building. The south side elevation is blank, with a single-storey projection to the west end containing steel casement windows. The west rear elevation is dominated by a series of eight windows as on the front, with a pair of steel casement windows to the southern end. The north elevation, facing onto Ormeau Embankment, features a series of seven windows of the same type, with a blank brick wall to the west end.

The front lawn is enclosed by an original low redbrick wall with Art Deco style steel railings and matching gates to the south and north. Replacement steel railings enclose the site to the north.

The library opened in March 1959 as part of post-war growth in public services under the new Welfare State. Sketches for the building had been prepared by the City Surveyor in consultation with the City Librarian by 1945, with an estimated cost of £20,000. The contractor was Samuel Ross & Co Ltd. The building first appeared in valuation records in 1959, noted as the property of Belfast Corporation, valued at £580. The library continues to serve its original function, with the interior modernised to reflect the needs of contemporary library users. All essential modernist components of the building have been retained, making it an important local landmark of social and cultural importance to the community it serves.