Cathays Park Welsh Government Offices (Crown Buildings)

Cathays Park Welsh Government Offices (Crown Buildings)

This is a complex of two linked modern office buildings in Portland stone, designed as the headquarters for Welsh government functions. The scheme comprises CP1 (the Welsh Board of Health building), a long slim three-storey structure with concealed basement and attic, and CP2, a six-storey building (with four storeys below ground). A 1970s cuboid closed bridge links the two buildings at first floor level.

CP1 faces Alexandra Gardens with a hipped slate roof. Its front elevation displays 15 bays, each containing a tall rectangular glazed opening extending vertically through all three main floors and flanked by plain pilasters of equal width. The elevation is crowned by an entablature with modillion cornice. The central bay features a doorway surmounted by a royal coat of arms, approached by a wide flight of stairs with Art Deco bronze lampstands topped by dragons. Above this, a recessed attic storey contains 13 square glazed openings with carved panels at each end bay depicting a winged caduceus flanked by dragons.

On each return elevation, a projecting portico rises to the height of the main entablature, featuring giant pilasters with glazed openings of similar proportion to the front elevation and a central doorway topped by a stone lion holding a shield bearing the Gwynedd four lions coat of arms. Heraldic shields over the ground floor windows of the front elevation display the coats of arms of the 13 historic Welsh counties plus the Prince of Wales feathers, with the four pre-First World War county boroughs represented on the side elevations. Above these shields runs a bronze band featuring Art Deco style lion heads, which continue around the rear elevation.

The interior of CP1 contains a lobby with a Soaneian domed ceiling, housing memorials to staff of the Welsh Insurance Commission who died in the First World War and staff of the Welsh Board of Health who died in the Second World War. A limestone staircase hall with Art Deco clock and railings leads to a principal office with panelled doors and original light fittings. A pair of intertwined dragons decorates the ceiling over the landing in front of this office.

The connecting bridge is seven bays wide measured against CP1 and three bays wide against CP2, supported on two massive cuboid columns positioned near CP1. It penetrates the original rear elevation of CP1 across two bays above the columns with a recess between them. The bridge's sides are blind except for a royal coat of arms; its flat roof features lights and a coffered square grid ceiling underneath, which shelters the rear door of CP1 and the main entrance to CP2. Small security lodges with shallow hipped roofs flank the bridge, monitoring a pair of ramps leading to underground parking below CP2.

CP2 is flat-roofed with bronze-tinted aluminium cladding to its recessed upper storeys, creating an impression of matching height with CP1. The building measures nine bays on its short sides (front and rear) and thirteen bays on its long sides. A perimeter colonnade of massive cuboid piers, triangular at the four corners, supports the second floor, with the ground and first floors recessed well behind to create a lofty covered stoa with a coffered ceiling. The colonnade rests on a substantial podium wall forming the inner side of massive sills or trenches with a battered outer edge. Six wedge-like monopitches continuing the batter cap stair towers descending to underground levels, with vertical rooflights and internal doors occupying the outer two bays of the short sides and one bay at the middle of each long side. An open bay without a sill on the north side of each long side provides pedestrian access to the stoa and side doors.

The ground and first floor glazing is divided by plain pilasters vertically and horizontally by aluminium panels, similar in character to CP1's elevations. The third floor projects as coffered overhangs along all four sides but is not joined at the corners, where the inner sides are blind. The fourth floor, clad in aluminium, is set back and smaller; the blind fifth floor, containing plant and services, is set further back again, forming a figure-of-eight configuration that shelters the sides of two large square concertina glazed rooflights serving two sunken atria descending to fourth floor height. Four tall narrow windows occupy each bay on each level, reduced to three at the upper floor corners.

The principal entrance at the front southern end of CP2 opens into a double floor-height entrance hall with a continuous mezzanine balcony on all four sides and an axially positioned grand staircase. The middle landing of this staircase is occasionally used for delivering important speeches. Walls, columns and staircase in this hall are clad in travertine, and the ceiling features a deeply coffered square grid. Beyond the entrance hall, two back-to-back atria occupy the middle of the deep building beneath rooflights. These atria are vertically stepped, widening with each floor in an inverted pyramid with its base on the first floor. The sides of the atria are lined with smaller offices and meeting rooms; the remaining levels are generally large open plan spaces interrupted only by the grid of columns. Vehicle ramps descend to the second of four below-ground levels, with further central ramps accessing the other underground levels. One parking level is interrupted by an underground mezzanine floor.

Both blocks are faced in Portland stone with bronze or aluminium window panels throughout.