War Memorial Building, 9 Waring Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 2DX

War Memorial Building, 9 Waring Street, Belfast

This is a detached four-storey Modernist building, designed by J. Michael Bowley (an English architect then based in Sevenoaks, Kent, who served in the Royal Army Service Corps during the Second World War) in association with local architect Granville Smyth of Belfast. Construction took place between 1959 and 1963, and the building was opened by HM The Queen Mother in 1963. The design was the result of a nationwide architectural competition. The building sits within a conservation area and the listing extends to the offices, gallery and railings.

The site itself carries particular historical weight: it was created by bombing during the Belfast Blitz of May 1941, which obliterated several earlier buildings including the former Queen's Arms Hotel (dating from around 1840), described at the time as one of the most commodious hotels in the town, along with a number of commercial shops. The War Memorial Building was conceived as a permanent memorial to those who sacrificed their lives in the First and Second World Wars, as a hall of friendship recording the wartime bond between the people of Northern Ireland and American and Belgian forces, and as a home for service charities and entertainment facilities for ex-servicemen.

Architecturally, the building is of frame construction with a set-back attic floor. It sits back from the south side of Waring Street, with a contemporaneous L-shaped wing to the rear. The flat roof carries a large overhanging concrete eaves canopy at attic level, the gable of which has a mansard profile. A copper-clad, squat round tower stands at the west end, and three flagpoles are positioned behind the south parapet.

The front and rear walls are of modular concrete framework: the north elevation has slate panels below the window openings, the south elevation has brick panels, and the gable wall uses brown brick panels set between the expressed lines of the structural concrete frame. At ground floor level, the wall is set back behind square black slate piloti and clad with smooth-faced white concrete panels.

The principal north elevation facing Waring Street is 21 windows wide. Eight piloti form a colonnade at ground floor level. Full-height windows occupy the second and third bays, and the main entrance is set back in the wall, centred behind the fifth bay. Upper-floor windows are single-pane metal replacements; ground-floor windows are full-height metal replacements with varying pane configurations. A 1970s single-storey entrance porch is set back to the west side, and the main entrance itself has a replacement glazed metal doorway.

The east elevation of the main building has two windows flanking the central vertical structural framing, with the northern ground-floor window sitting at the front corner. The south elevation is symmetrical: the upper floors have 15 windows flanked by large brick panels with square windows, while at ground floor level two full-height windows each align with three window bays above and are flanked by solid brick panels. A flat-roofed link building projects from the west side. The west elevation mirrors the east but has one central window, and a central single-storey rusticated rendered entrance porch was added in the 1970s.

To the rear is a single-storey wing of five bays: three tall windows are flanked by brick panels, and this wing is connected to the main building by a three-paned glazed link with central double doors. The north elevation of this rear building has two bays with windows running the full width at first-floor level; the west bay at ground level is glazed with central double doors. The east bay is obscured by a later flat-roofed glazed link block leading to a single-storey annexe at 5 Waring Street, which houses the Royal Ulster Rifles Museum. This annexe has a shallow pitched roof, is of similar concrete frame construction with brown brick infill panels, and has replacement windows — full-height to the south elevation and set at high level to the north. The glazed entrance doors to the rear of the main building are timber; the windows to the southern return are uPVC. Walls are of precast concrete, stone and brick; rainwater goods are uPVC. The roof was not inspected.

The building is set back from Waring Street behind plain metal railings on a pink granite kerb. A step running the full length of the building in front of the columns intersects a forecourt paved with concrete slabs. Vehicular access passes down the east side of the building to car parking at the rear. To the west is the Northern Whig building, and the building opposite is also listed.

The original modular, unembellished character of the Modern Movement largely survives, though some historic detailing has been lost through the replacement of the fenestration. When the Council of the Northern Ireland War Memorial sold the building in 2006 and moved to new premises at 21 Talbot Street, a number of significant interior features were relocated there, including the original stained glass memorial window by Stanley Murray Scott, a Belgian marble war memorial plaque, a copper frieze by James McKendry, and two Rolls of Honour.

The Royal Ulster Rifles Museum continues to operate from the rear extension, commemorating the history of the regiment from 1793 with exhibits including uniforms, badges, medals and other memorabilia. At the time of the Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, the completed building was occupied and owned outright by the Council of the Northern Ireland War Memorial, with a total rateable value of £520, which remained unchanged through to the end of the revaluation period in 1972.

The building is a good example of its type and is unusual within the Province.