Calcutta Buildings, 16, 18 Commercial Street, Dundee

Calcutta Buildings, located at 16 and 18 Commercial Street in Dundee, is a late 19th-century, three-storey and attic commercial terrace designed in a Renaissance style. The building features a 16-bay façade with canted angle bays, three bays on the left return, and five bays on the right. It is constructed from grey sandstone ashlar and topped with a slate Mansard roof that includes fishscale bands on the octagonal angle domes and a flattened pyramidal roof at number 22.

The ground floor has a corniced finish, while the first floor is adorned with a decorative frieze. The second floor features a corbelled main cornice and a panelled parapet. The pend leading to number 20 is highlighted by pedimented channelled pilasters and pilaster strips that extend through the first and second floors, topped with urn finials on the parapet. Paired pilaster strips are found on the first and second floors, leading to a corniced and pilastered parapet with pediment details between the floors.

Windows throughout the building include single, bi-, and tripartite designs with two-pane timber sash and case glazing, most of which are architraved. Some windows have cusped lintels and colonette mullions with composite capitals on the first floor. The dormers are single, bi-, and tripartite aediculaed designs with segmental and triangular pediments, of which seven out of fifteen originally had urn finials. The domes are topped with glazed and corniced octagonal drums featuring decorative wrought-iron finials, and there is a decorative wrought-iron parapet on the pyramidal roof.

The elevation facing Commercial Street is asymmetrical, with shopfronts on the ground floor, including a public house at number 18. The pend entry to number 20 is enhanced by decorative wrought-iron gates, whin setts, and steel cart tracks, along with three close doors. The arrangement of windows on the first and second floors follows a pattern of 2-1-3-2-1-6-1, while the dormers are arranged as 2-1-1-1-3-3-1. The canted angle bays are present on both the left and right sides, with tripartite windows on the first and second floors and tripartite dormers at the drums of the domes.

The left return elevation facing Exchange Street features a public house on the ground floor, with a tripartite window on both the first and second floors and a single dormer above. The right return elevation has a door and various windows on the ground floor, with bipartite and tripartite windows on the first floor, which includes a pierced parapet at the wallhead on the right. The second floor has a bipartite window on the left and a single dormer above.

The interior of the building has not been seen.