Business Park, 38 Montgomery Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT6 9HL

This is a two-storey, multi-bay industrial building erected in 1951, originally constructed as a working factory but initially used to house Northern Ireland's principal contribution to the Festival of Britain: the Ulster Farm and Factory Exhibition. It is attributed to Henry Lynch-Robinson (Design Advisor to the local Festival Committee), Willy De Majo (designer-in-chief of the main exhibition building), and Ferguson and McIlveen (architects of the main factory). The building sits on the north side of Montgomery Road at its junction with Alanbrooke Road in south-east Belfast, in the townland of Cregagh Lisnasharragh.

Architectural Character

The building has an oblong plan form with a large, square-plan industrial unit to the rear. It is of flat-roof construction with a parapet, projected horizontal eaves with a stepped edge, and a north-light roof. Rainwater goods are concealed; uPVC vent pipes are visible externally. The walls are of red brick laid in stretcher bond, partially rendered. Windows are replacement uPVC double units with plain, squared, projected surrounds. Entrance doors are replacement double-leaf aluminium-framed glazed units.

The principal, south-facing elevation is asymmetrically arranged. To the right is a two-storey projected double-aspect entrance block; its south facade is principally arranged with symmetrical vertical fenestration and projected smooth rendered surrounds. The central portion is slightly wider and more projected, denoting the entrance, which is incorporated with a horizontal canopy. Later-added herringbone brick spandrel panels have been inserted between the ground and first floor levels, and the parapet on both facades has been later rendered smooth with coping flashing.

The east facade is asymmetrically arranged, with a centrally positioned projected half-round glazed stair shaft with slightly wedged mullions — the most immediately recognisable surviving Festival of Britain feature. To the left of the stair shaft the wall is blank; to the right it is smooth rendered, with a single ground-floor door and a first-floor window, with a matching window on the north return.

To the left of the entrance block on the south elevation is a long, multi-bay block comprising horizontal glazed strip windows at both ground and first floor levels, partially altered at ground floor. The left (west) elevation is asymmetrically arranged: to the right is the terminating facade of the oblong block, comprising three first-floor windows and a double-leaf ground-floor door with projected brick piers and a horizontal concrete canopy; to the left is a single ground-floor window. This elevation is partially clad with corrugated metal. The rear elevation has a series of high-level windows and is principally abutted by the large, double-height industrial portion, which is built in non-matching brick with corrugated metal cladding to the upper levels. The right (east-facing) elevation is largely blank, with vertical piers and various ground-floor windows and roller shutters.

Roofing materials are asphalt and corrugated asbestos.

Historical Background

The Festival of Britain of 1951 was conceived as a national celebration intended to lift public morale during post-war austerity — rationing was still in daily use — and to commemorate the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Unlike its predecessors, including the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, the Festival was not focused on empire. The South Bank Exhibition in London set out to tell a continuous story of British contributions to world civilisation in the arts of the people, while also promoting high-modern ideas in art and design. Although the festival was centred on London, two regional exhibitions with an industrial theme were held in Glasgow and Belfast.

Belfast's contribution, the Ulster Farm and Factory Exhibition, was housed in this newly built factory on a 3.5-acre site. The exhibition described the growth and development of the linen trade and other local industries, while the surrounding grounds told the story of agriculture in Northern Ireland and the modern research informing farming practice. The exhibition was intended to demonstrate the contribution of Northern Ireland to the British economy and to reaffirm the province's place within national identity.

The co-ordinating and chief designer of the exhibition was William Maks de Majo (1917–1993), a graphic designer and native of Vienna who had emigrated to England in 1939 and served with distinction in the RAF. He is best remembered for founding Icograda, the International Council of Graphic Design Associations. De Majo designed the exhibition displays and, alongside Henry Lynch-Robinson, contributed to the dressing of the factory building for its Festival role and possibly to its design. Primary sources include perspective drawings of the factory signed by both men. Lynch-Robinson (1920–1984) was at the time an emerging and influential young architect working in the modernist tradition, who went on to design several fire stations, though much of his work — cafes and lounge bars — later proved ephemeral. One secondary source attributes the design of the building itself to Ferguson and McIlveen, an architectural and engineering partnership formed in the early 1920s, though this is unconfirmed by primary sources.

The building was always intended to revert to use as a working factory after the exhibition's three-month run. Much of the construction archive has survived, including photographs of the site during construction showing the newly-laid-out Montgomery Road area as a district of green fields with scattered industrial and agricultural buildings — the existing factories having been built under the post-war Industries Development Act as part of a governmental drive to encourage firms to develop production branches in Northern Ireland.

The Festival opened at the South Bank on 3 May 1951; the Castlereagh exhibition opened somewhat later, on 1 June 1951, and ran for three months. It had been intended that the King and Queen would open the exhibit, but the King was too unwell to attend and the Queen and Princess Margaret were the first visitors. The factory exhibit covered 20,000 square feet. Much of the exhibition space was devoted to textiles — linen, cotton, shirt-making, poplin, woollens and rayon — with large sections also given over to shipbuilding (including rope manufacture), tobacco, whiskey, mineral waters, pottery, aircraft and engineering industries. The building housed administrative offices, staff rooms, a souvenir shop, information counter, cinema, cafeteria, roof café, first-aid centre and a BBC studio.

Among the features that distinguished the building during the exhibition — and have since been removed — was a 50-foot vertical feature on top of the building, included at de Majo's suggestion as a Northern Ireland counterpart of the Skylon on the South Bank. The original entrance was on the southern facade under a triangular canopy. A radar mast to the north of the building allowed visitors to view the movements of ships on Belfast Lough. In front of the factory a water course and fountain were installed, over which hung a mobile designed by Veronica de Majo. The remainder of the site was laid out as the farm exhibit, with a traditional thatched cottage of 1851 and a New Model Farm personally designed by Lynch-Robinson.

There were 156,760 paid admissions during the 80 days the exhibition was open — 50% more than originally estimated — and it was widely judged a success. The exhibition souvenir described the building thus: "When you walk through the doors, you...walk not only into an exhibition which intelligently represents our way of life, you...walk into a factory which itself demonstrates one of the most significant and far-sighted methods by which we make that progressive way of life a possibility. You...see a fine self-portrait, finely framed." The festival committee's subsequent report concluded: "The impressive story told by the exhibits was one in which the spectator could well take pride, and the setting in which it was displayed added to its attractiveness. Above all there was the cheerful atmosphere of lightness, colour and gaiety, music, flowers and lawns."

Following the closure of the exhibition, the fixtures and fittings — including the 50-foot vertical feature — were auctioned and the factory was adapted for use by local firm Messrs Short Brothers and Harland. Some exterior decorative features appear to have been retained initially, but the fountains and water courses are now gone. The building first appears on the Ordnance Survey map of the 1960s–70s captioned "Works" and enters valuation records in 1953 at a valuation of £600 for industrial buildings and £120 for non-industrial, leased from the Ministry of Commerce for Northern Ireland and used as a paint store and flow test house by Short Bros and Harland Ltd. The 1950s was a period when Shorts were engaged in pioneering research, including aircraft with adjustable wings and the first vertical take-off planes. Regular increases in valuation through the 1950s and 1960s indicate the premises were expanding during this period. In more recent years Shorts — latterly Bombardier — vacated the building, which is now occupied by a number of commercial ventures.

Setting

The building is located in an industrialised area surrounded by similarly sized buildings from the same era. Extensive car-parking plots surround the building with a large forecourt to the west. An open culvert runs adjacent to the main entrance. The site is bounded by roads to the south and east.

Despite some alteration to the interior, exterior and immediate setting, the distinct post-war Festival of Britain style and proportions remain immediately identifiable, and the original stair shaft in particular survives as a direct and legible reminder of the building's unique history.