Aberdeen University Students' Union, 11 Gallowgate, Aberdeen

Late 19th century. 3-storey and attic 'Aberdeen Baronial' university building on prominent corner site with shops at ground. Contains fine series of murals by Robert Sivell and Alberto Morocco, painted between 1938 and 1954 (see Statement of Special Interest). Early 21st century alterations to form flatted accommodation and retail storage to parts of the building.

Polished granite ashlar with finely tooled dressings. Regular fenestration with chamfered cill courses and string course between 1st and 2nd floor; continuous basket-arched plate glass shop windows at ground. Main entrance at canted SE corner flanked by bipartite ogee-arched windows; canted oriel windows to upper floors; glazed octagonal turret to attic with domed copper roof; stylised machiolated parapet with terminal gablets; gabled ashlar wallhead dormers with exaggerated finials.

8-bay to Upperkirkgate elevation: centre right bay with pierced consoled balcony at 2nd floor; 3-bay wallhead attic storey supporting gabled viewing balcony with finial and ogee roofed octagonal turrets. Symmetrical 11-bay to Gallowgate elevation: canted oriel window to centre bay, as at corner, flanked by dormers.

Timber sash and case plate glass windows. Mansard roof, grey slates; ashlar coped skews; ashlar stacks.

INTERIOR: Sivell's Bar with shallow barrel-vaulted ceiling and proscenium arched stage with geometric mid-20th century railings. Bar contains fine series of murals (see Statement of Special Interest).

Historical background

The interior behind the 19th century facades on Upperkirkgate and Gallowgate was substantially re-developed in the 1930s. The building was internally reorganised by architect James B Nicol to accommodate the University of Aberdeen Student Union, and its circulation was reoriented to address a new three storey addition to the rear. The top floor of the addition contained a hall with a stage. In 1938, students commissioned Robert Sivell to paint murals on three walls of the hall, subsequently renamed the Sivell Bar. They were executed between 1939 and 1954, interrupted by the Second World War, and comprise eleven panels painted in oil on plaster. After the gradual relocation of student union functions to Kings College in Old Aberdeen in the early 2000s, the building was sold several times and finally acquired by the owners of the adjacent shopping centre. Parts of the building are currently used as retail space and parts have been converted to flatted accommodation. The bar is currently out of use (2024).