93-101 Royal Avenue, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 1FE

Five-storey Art Deco commercial building on a corner site, designed by architect James Scott and built in 1935–36 as an extension to an existing department store. Originally the northern extension of Sinclair's Department Store, it occupies the prominent corner of Royal Avenue and North Street in Belfast city centre and is one of the rarest examples of both Art Deco style and faience cladding in the city.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The site has a continuous retail history stretching back to around 1900, when Sinclair & Co., a drapers firm, occupied an earlier late-Victorian premises at this corner of Royal Avenue. The practice of Belfast architect James Scott (c.1878–1949/50) designed both the original 1926 building to the south and this 1935–36 extension. Scott had practised in Belfast from 1903, though he appears to have served in the First World War and carried out no recorded work between 1916 and 1923. On returning to practice he concentrated chiefly on commercial and suburban domestic work in Belfast; Sinclair's Department Store is noted in the Dictionary of Irish Architects as his most conspicuous landmark. The site was leased by Sinclair & Co. from a consortium of prominent Belfast landlords including Matilda McClean, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and the representatives of Joseph J. Biggar's estate, who owned the plot outright. The First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, carried out in 1935 immediately before the extension was built, valued the 1926 building at £2,000.

The 1935–36 extension was designed in the Art Deco style, a characteristically interwar approach marked by ornamentation, eclecticism, and stark geometric shapes. Where its predecessor Art Nouveau had drawn on natural aesthetics, Art Deco expressed the modern mechanical world. The store reopened in 1936 and survived the 1941 Belfast Blitz undamaged. The Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1956 assessed the combined four-storey store and five-storey extension at £6,200; the owners contested this as too high, and by the end of the revaluation period in 1972 the figure had been reduced to £4,640. The extension stands directly opposite another early example of Art Deco in Northern Ireland, the Bank of Ireland building erected in 1928–30.

During the Troubles, Royal Avenue was pedestrianised and many of its stores became targets for bomb and vandalism attacks. On 12 July 1971 Sinclair's was damaged in a bomb attack; though the damage was relatively minor, the store closed on 1 September 1972 as a result of the commercial decline of Belfast city centre, and the building was subsequently sold to a Japanese firm for £60,000. The building was listed in 1989 and has since continued in commercial use. At the time of recording, ground-floor units in both blocks were lying vacant while the upper floors had been converted to modern office space, occupied by McConnell Surveyors.

EXTERIOR

The building is five storeys high, with an attic storey to the corner. It was designed as the second two stages of the overall Sinclair's development and forms the corner of Royal Avenue and North Street in a more modern Art Deco interpretation than the classical 1926 building to the south. The roof is flat, concealed behind a parapet, with plain metal rails at the roof edge; rainwater goods are hidden within the structure.

The walls are clad throughout in cream faience. Pediments have blocked keystones, with the main pediment flanked by geometric volutes. Windows are divided by fluted mullions — convex between the attic level and concave between the tall first- to third-floor bays. The tall bays have an inset architrave, with windows separated at each floor level by a solid panel carrying stepped and circular decoration incorporating an 'S' motif. A black string course runs at first-floor cill level. The ground floor has been refaced in replacement polished red granite with replacement shop windows, and a deep canopy projects at ground-floor level with a replacement (or possibly replacement) moulded metal fascia.

The west elevation is two windows wide with a stepped pediment over. The north-west corner elevation is the most prominent feature: it carries a grand stepped pediment with clock digits set into the faience, flanked by vertical inset panels, over five window bays. To the west is a canted corner with one window bay, its windows reflecting those of the west elevation. The north elevation mirrors the west elevation. The south elevation is entirely abutted by the original 1926 building.

Paul Patton described the extension as a "distinctive five-storey Art Deco faience building with modernistic clock on zig-zag pediment at chamfered corner with North Street; upper floor windows with panels marked 'S' (Sinclair) set in narrow recesses between fluted columns."

SETTING

The building sits directly on the east side pavement of Royal Avenue, Belfast's principal commercial street, turning the corner into North Street and forming a dominant presence at this major junction. It is abutted to the south by the listed 1926 Sinclair's building. The facing corners of the junction are occupied by further listed buildings: the Bank of Ireland building and two others listed on the heritage register. Together, the 1926 building and its 1935–36 extension form a notable record of the expansion of Belfast's commercial centre and the growth of department store retail in the city during the early 20th century.