Gas Showroom, 37-43 Bank Street, Alloa

Gas Showroom, 37-43 Bank Street, Alloa

This gas showroom was designed by William Kerr of the architectural practice Kerr and Gray between 1935 and 1938. The building presents a striking contrast between its classical public frontage and its more progressive Moderne styling on secondary elevations. The Bank Street front is constructed in yellow-coloured polished ashlar, while the southern and rear elevations are rendered in white-painted concrete in a more avant-garde idiom.

The Bank Street elevation is the principal façade. It displays strict classical symmetry, with a recessed 3-bay centre block flanked by projecting 2-bay blocks on either side. A hint of Art Deco detailing appears in the glazing patterns and in the 'stream-lined' incised horizontal banding above the plinth, which links the ground floor windows and continues above to link the 1st floor windows of the flanking blocks. The shop-front occupies the ground floor, featuring a 3-bay composition with two large picture windows flanking a central recessed entrance bay. The original Art Deco glazing pattern survives above both the picture windows and entrance. A balcony is carried across in front of three 1st floor windows, with original wrought-iron railing preserved. The 1st floor of the centre block has large windows with moulded surrounds. The flanking blocks feature multi-paned fixed metal windows (30-pane units with central 6-pane hopper openings) at ground floor and smaller square casement windows (12 leaded panes) at 1st floor. The centre block rises above the wallhead with a corniced parapet, stepped at the centre over a sculptured panel bearing the burgh crest inscribed "in the forefront". The roof is flat behind this parapet.

The corner elevation turning from Bank Street to Stripehead features a deeply scooped single concave bay with a 3-light canted window projecting at ground level and a single window at 1st floor. A retaining wall in front of the canted window responds to the sloping site.

The southern (Stripehead) elevation is less symmetrical and rises three storeys (with a basement level where the ground slopes to the east). The left-hand bays retain ashlar facing where the façade wraps around the corner. To the right, ashlar is limited to the basement and ground levels, with a band course of ashlar between ground and 1st floors and white-painted concrete above. The 1st floor has single window openings grouped either side of a tall, narrow, 2-storey vertical stair window positioned off-centre. An architraved window with cast-iron balcony sits off-centre to the left of a group of four single windows above a ground floor side entrance with projecting concrete canopy. Narrow strip windows at 2nd floor contain fixed multi-paned metal windows divided by mullions faced with blue glazed tiles.

The rear elevation facing Coalgate is short and splayed, with shop-fronts at ground floor beneath a concrete canopy with rounded ends. The 1st and 2nd floors are recessed between bulbous rounded angle 'towers'. The 1st floor contains three windows, the central pair being fixed windows with shutters and a recessed semi-circular carved panel above. The 2nd floor features a continuously-glazed narrow strip window with blue-tiled mullions matching those on the southern elevation. A concrete blocking course runs across, and an original light fitting on a hook-shaped bracket is attached to the left-hand rounded angle 'tower'.

The interior was not inspected at the time of listing assessment in 1992.