Imperial House, 4-10 Donegall Square East, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 5HD

Imperial House, 4–10 Donegall Square East, Belfast

Imperial House is a four-storey building (with basement and a diminished fifth floor) designed by the Belfast-based architect and structural engineer Kendrick Edwards (1874–1943) and constructed in 1935. It sits on the east side of Donegall Square, facing City Hall, and was one of the first steel-frame buildings to be erected in Belfast. When completed it was described as "modern without being freakish and traditional without being imitative." Edwards, originally born in England, had established an independent practice in Belfast in 1907; prior to Imperial House he had designed Donegall Chambers on Donegall Place in 1932–33. The builder contracted to realise Edwards's design was a Mr Thomas McKee.

The building was originally designed in what has been variously described as an Art Deco and Neo-Georgian style, making use of terracotta and faience — materials popular in interwar construction — with a black marble ground floor. It is a fifteen-bay composition arranged as three sections of five bays each on the principal west elevation facing the square. The central section is slightly recessed and topped with a triangulated pediment; the flanking sections have stepped pediments. Giant fluted pilasters rise from second-floor level up into the pediment of the central section. A shallow projecting flat cornice runs at eaves level, with a frieze of slightly raised stone squares below it. The frieze over the ground floor is plain except for stone squares set within the central section. Window openings are flat-lintelled; those at first-floor level have exaggerated keystones and stepped reveals. The flat roof is unseen behind the pediment and parapet, and the rainwater goods are also hidden.

The north elevation is twelve windows wide. Its ground floor is tiled to the western part, with the remainder in lined render; a concave reeded string course runs at first-floor level. An enclosed bridge extends from the third floor on this elevation. The east elevation, partially visible, is brick with regular window openings and concrete lintels. The south elevation abuts the neighbouring listed building to that side.

Following a refurbishment and renovation carried out in 2003 by Alan Cook Architects, the building's current external fabric differs significantly from the original. The walls are now faced in ashlar stone, replacing the original matt white terracotta tiles, and the ground floor is faced in marble. Windows are replacement timber frames — twelve-paned on the main elevation, two-paned elsewhere. The ground-floor shopfronts and entrance door are all replacement metal frames. The historic interiors have also been lost; a 2014 inspection noted the building to be a shell with modern interior details only.

Although the proportions of solid and void have been retained in the refurbishment, the replacement of the original terracotta tile façade finish with stone compromised the integrity of the original design and resulted in the loss of the Art Deco external detailing. For these reasons, combined with the loss of the historic interiors, the building was delisted on 21 August 2015, having previously been listed in 1990, as it no longer met the statutory and policy tests as a building of special architectural or historic interest. It retains a record-only status.

Before Imperial House was built, the site at nos 4–10 Donegall Square East was occupied by three four-storey redbrick buildings with basements, forming a 19th-century terrace between the Ocean Building to the north and the Donegall Square East Methodist Church to the south. The northernmost building in that terrace was known as the Linenhall Hotel, the property of a Mr P. Dempsey. Because construction of Imperial House was completed towards the end of 1935, the building was not captured in the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland carried out that same year. It was first valued under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), at which point its total rateable value stood at £5,240 10s.

When first completed, Imperial House contained a number of ground-floor retail units with the upper floors used as office space. By 1943 the ground-floor units were occupied by W. B. McKee & Sons (estate agents), the National Building Society, Cable & Wireless Ltd., and the Royal Exchange Assurance. Upper-floor occupants at that time included solicitors' firms, Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. — from whose tenancy the building takes its name — Munster Simms & Co. General Importers, and the wartime Ministry of Supply. By the time of the Second Revaluation, tenants included the Abbey National Building Society, Insurance Corporation Ireland, offices of the Postmaster General of the United Kingdom (until the abolition of that position under the Post Office Act of 1969), W. Erskine Mayne Ltd. (a local publishing firm), and Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., which retained its presence at the site. Plans mooted in the late 1990s to add additional floors to Imperial House were ultimately shelved.

The connecting bridge between Imperial House and the adjoining Ocean Building was installed at some point between 1959, when it does not appear on Ordnance Survey mapping, and 1989, when it is visible in survey photography.

Imperial House stands at the heart of the city, opposite City Hall and its gardens, with the Ocean Building immediately to the north across a narrow lane and the Donegall Square East Methodist Church abutting to the south. Many other listed buildings form the perimeter of Donegall Square. The building lies within a conservation area and remains in office use under private ownership.