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

War Memorial Building, 9 Waring Street, Belfast

A detached four-storey Modernist building constructed in 1959 to competition designs by J. Michael Bowley in association with Granville Smyth of Belfast, serving as a permanent War Memorial building for Northern Ireland. The building employs frame construction with a set-back attic floor and sits set back from the south side of Waring Street. A contemporaneous L-shaped wing extends to the rear.

The building is characterised by its flat roof with a large overhanging concrete eaves canopy above the attic level, the gable of which has a mansard profile. A copper-clad squat round tower is positioned at the west end, with three flag poles set behind the south parapet. The front and rear walls consist of modular concrete framework with slate panels below window openings to the north elevation and brick to the south. The gable wall is of brown brick panels set between the outline of the structural concrete frame. The ground floor wall, recessed behind black slate square piloti, is clad with smooth-faced white concrete panels.

The north elevation is 21 windows wide, with 8 piloti forming a colonnade at ground floor level. Full-height windows sit in the second and third bays, while the entrance is set back and centred behind the fifth bay. A single-storey entrance porch from the 1970s is set back to the west side. The east elevation of the main building has two windows flanking the central vertical structural framing, with the northern window at ground floor positioned at the front corner. The single-storey rear building has five bays, with three tall windows flanked by brick panels, connected to the main building by a three-paned glazed link with central double doors. The south elevation is symmetrical, with the upper floors featuring 15 windows flanked by large brick panels with square windows. At ground floor level, two full-height windows align with three window bays above, flanked by solid brick panels. A flat-roofed link building projects from the west side. The north elevation to the rear building has two bays with windows running full width to the first floor, the west bay at ground level 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 a museum. This annexe has a shallow pitched roof and is of similar concrete frame construction with brown brick infill panels, featuring full-height replacement windows to the south elevation and high-level windows to the north. A central single-storey rusticated rendered entrance porch was added in the 1970s.

Windows throughout comprise single-pane metal replacements to the upper floors, with full-height metal replacements of varying panes at ground floor, while windows to the southern return are uPVC. The main entrance features a replacement glazed metal doorway, with an entrance to the upper floors set in a 1970s extension to the west gable. The glazed entrance doors to the rear are timber. Rainwater goods are uPVC.

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 the forecourt, which is paved with concrete slabs. Vehicular access passes down the east side of the building to car parking at the rear. The Northern Whig (listed building HB26/50/060) stands to the west, with listed building HB26/50/246 opposite.