Lewis's Department Store, 65-117 Argyle Street, Glasgow

Lewis’s Department Store, located at 65-117 Argyle Street, Glasgow, was constructed between 1932 and 1949 for Lewis’s Royal Polytechnic Ltd as a warehouse and retail space, replacing earlier premises on the site. The design is an extensive example of 1930s classical architecture, with later additions at the rear and a link to the St Enoch’s shopping centre completed in 1988 by Michael Haskoll Associates, accompanied by substantial interior reconstruction. The building comprises six storeys, an attic, and basement and sub-basement levels.

The main facade, facing Argyle Street, is constructed of ashlar Portland stone, with a brick rear incorporating ashlar bands and attic detailing and steel sheet piling. Polished granite aprons frame the shop windows at ground level. The ground floor features ashlar channelled detailing, while the first floor exhibits ashlar pilasters. Plate glass display windows are present at ground level, with bordered, blinded fascia lights. Upper floors have windows in steel pivot casements with a small-pane pattern. The symmetrical facade is arranged in bays grouped 3-18-3, with entrances recessed within splayed corner bays. At ground level, fifteen shop windows are present, flanked by wide doorway recesses with fluted Doric columns. The first floor features single windows, while the corner bays and outer bays of the groupings of three have tripartite windows at the second floor. Pilasters delineate the outer bays up to the entablature level. The third floor mirrors the second. The fourth and fifth floors incorporate a central 18-bay arcade with windows in each bay, smaller on the fifth floor, and featuring geometric wrought-iron balcony railings. Groups of three bays contain central single windows on the fourth floor and bipartites on the fifth, flanked at both floors by tripartite windows. Thomsonesque pediments adorn the centre lights of the fourth-floor windows, with smaller pediments above the fifth-floor windows. Corner bays on the fourth and fifth floors have recessed window panels and tripartite windows to the central light at the fourth floor in addition to a balcony. Fluted pilaster necks extend up the facade, leading to a moulded cornice above the entablature. The attic floor has architraved single windows and tripartite windows in the outer bays of the three-bay groupings, with minimalist pediments and a guilloche carved frieze. The corner bays feature single windows. The building is topped by a flat roof.

The west elevation, facing Maxwell Street, is six bays wide and detailed similarly to the main facade, incorporating a lesser doorway and a four-bay arcade on the fourth and fifth floors. The east elevation, facing Dunlop Street, is eight bays wide, also mirroring the main facade and including a lesser doorway and a six-bay arcade at the centre on the fourth and fifth floors. The south elevation, facing what was formerly Croy Place and is now N Drive, is irregular and asymmetrical, with an ashlar cill course to the fourth floor. Rectangular projections extend from the centre, with modern additions at ground level to the left and further extensions added in 1988. The ashlar attic is raised above the height of the other elevations in a blank wall plane.