Dunelm House

Last updated

Dunelm House
Dunelm3.jpg
The top level entrance of the building
Dunelm House
General information
TypeUniversity building
Architectural style Brutalism
Coordinates 54°46′24″N1°34′18″W / 54.77333°N 1.57167°W / 54.77333; -1.57167
Completed1966
Technical details
Floor count6
Listed Building – Grade II
Official nameDunelm House including landing stage, steps and attached walls
Designated9 July 2021
Reference no.1477064 [1]

Dunelm House is a Grade II listed building in Durham, England, built in 1966 in the brutalist style. It belongs to Durham University and houses Durham Students' Union. Its listing entry cites, among other factors, that it is "a significant Brutalist building that reflects the latest in architectural thinking for its date" and that it is "the foremost students’ union building of the post-war era in England". [1]

Contents

History

Construction

The brutalist angular concrete building was designed by Richard Raines and Michael Powers of the Architects' Co-Partnership, [2] and completed in 1966 under the supervision of architect Sir Ove Arup, whose adjacent Kingsgate Bridge opened two years earlier. Built into the steeply sloping bank of the River Wear, Dunelm House is notable internally for the fact that the main staircase linking all five levels of the building runs in an entirely straight line. This was intended by the building's architects to create the feeling of an interior street. [3]

Music venue

The building was opened in 1966 with a concert by the Thelonious Monk quartet. [4]

During the 1960s and 70s, the venue was part of the national music circuit, and hosted bands including Pink Floyd and Procol Harum. [5] After one gig in 1969, members of Free wrote the song All Right Now in their dressing room in the building, which went on to be their biggest hit. [6]

Views

In 1968 Dunelm House won a Civic Trust award. [7] Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the noted architecture historian, considered the building, "Brutalist by tradition but not brutal to the landscape ... the elements, though bold, [are] sensitively composed." [3] Durham City Council's Local Plan notes that the "powerful" building, together with Kingsgate Bridge, "provides an exhilarating pedestrian route ... out into open space over the river gorge". [8]

Public views were divided from the start, with a local newspaper in 1966 reporting views ranging from "the third best looking building in the city" (after the cathedral and castle), to a "monstrosity". [9] The Observer in 2017 reported that students called it "that ugly concrete building". [4]

Uncertain future and eventual listing

In 2016, the university applied for a Certificate of Immunity from Listing, and revealed plans to demolish the building as part of their estate masterplan, saying it would cost £15 million to make the building fit for purpose. [10] Historic England suggested that Dunelm House should be made a Grade II listed building, but culture secretary Karen Bradley said she was inclined instead to grant the certificate of immunity, allowing the building to be demolished. [11]

In 2017, the building hosted a conference under the title "Caring for Brutalism", sponsored by the university and the Twentieth Century Society, which brought together experts on brutalist architecture to discuss the significance and future of Dunelm House and similar 20th century buildings. [2]

The Secretary of State's initial decision to grant a certificate of immunity was appealed by the Twentieth Century Society. The initial appeal was unsuccessful but a second appeal on the grounds that there were irregularities in the listing process and evidence that the decision had been wrongly made led to an announcement in 2021 that the building would be listed at Grade II. [12] [2] [1] This was reported in both local and national press. [13]

Related Research Articles

Durham Students' Union, operating as Durham SU, is the students' union of Durham University in Durham, England. It is an organisation, originally set up as the Durham Colleges Students’ Representative Council in 1899 and renamed in 1969, with the intention of representing and providing welfare and services for the students of the University of Durham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Central Library</span> Former main public library in Birmingham, England

Birmingham Central Library was the main public library in Birmingham, England, from 1974 until 2013, replacing a library opened in 1865 and rebuilt in 1882. For a time the largest non-national library in Europe, it closed on 29 June 2013 and was replaced by the Library of Birmingham. The building was demolished in 2016, after 41 years, as part of the redevelopment of Paradise Circus by Argent Group. Designed by architect John Madin in the brutalist style, the library was part of an ambitious development project by Birmingham City Council to create a civic centre on its new Inner Ring Road system; however, for economic reasons significant parts of the master plan were not completed, and quality was reduced on materials as an economic measure. Two previous libraries occupied the adjacent site before Madin's library opened in 1974. The previous library, designed by John Henry Chamberlain, opened in 1883 and featured a tall clerestoried reading room. It was demolished in 1974 after the new library had opened.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denys Lasdun</span> English architect

Sir Denys Louis Lasdun, CH, CBE, RA was an eminent English architect, the son of Nathan Lasdun (1879–1920) and Julie. Probably his best known work is the Royal National Theatre, on London's South Bank of the Thames, which is a Grade II* listed building and one of the most notable examples of Brutalist design in the United Kingdom.

Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design. The style commonly makes use of exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes and a predominantly monochrome colour palette; other materials, such as steel, timber, and glass, are also featured.

Samuel Sanders Teulon was an English Gothic Revival architect, noted for his use of polychrome brickwork and the complex planning of his buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Student center</span> Building at a college or university for student activities

A student center is a type of building found on university and some high school campuses. In the United States, such a building may also be called a student union, student commons, or union. The term "student union" refers most often in the United States to a building, while in other nations a "students' union" is the student government. Nevertheless, the Association of College Unions International has several hundred campus organizational members in the US; there is no sharp dichotomy in interpretation of union in this context. The US usage in reference to a location is simply a shortened form of student union building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorman Long</span> British steel company

Dorman Long & Co was a UK steel producer, later diversifying into bridge building. The company was once listed on the London Stock Exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elvet</span> Human settlement in England

Elvet is an area of the city of Durham, in County Durham, in England. It is situated on the opposite side of the River Wear from Durham Cathedral and forms the south-eastern part of central Durham. Elvet is currently unparished.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingsgate Bridge</span> Bridge in Co. Durham

Kingsgate Bridge is a reinforced concrete construction footbridge across the River Wear, in Durham, England. It is a Grade I listed building. It was personally designed in 1963 by Ove Arup, the last structure he ever designed. Kingsgate Bridge connects Bow Lane on the peninsula in the centre of Durham to Dunelm House on New Elvet, which building Arup's studio also contributed, and opened in 1966. Kingsgate Bridge is thought to have been one of Arup's favourite designs of all: he had spent many hours working on every detail of the plans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeoville Thomason</span>

Henry Richard Yeoville Yardley Thomason was a British architect active in Birmingham. He was born in Edinburgh to a Birmingham family, and set up his own practice in Birmingham 1853–54.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barnes Wallis Building</span> University building at the University of Manchester

The Barnes Wallis Building/Wright Robinson Hall is a university building in central Manchester. It forms part of the campus of the former University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, which merged in 2004 with the nearby Victoria University of Manchester.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Liverpool</span> Overview of architecture of Liverpool, England

The architecture of Liverpool is rooted in the city's development into a major port of the British Empire. It encompasses a variety of architectural styles of the past 300 years, while next to nothing remains of its medieval structures which would have dated back as far as the 13th century. Erected 1716–18, Bluecoat Chambers is supposed to be the oldest surviving building in central Liverpool.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Durham University</span> Collegiate public research university in Durham, United Kingdom

Durham University is a collegiate public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charter in 1837. It was the first recognised university to open in England for more than 600 years, after Oxford and Cambridge, and is thus the third-oldest university in England. As a collegiate university, its main functions are divided between the academic departments of the university and its 17 colleges. In general, the departments perform research and provide teaching to students, while the colleges are responsible for their domestic arrangements and welfare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Langham House Close</span> Flats in London, England

Langham House Close on Ham Common in Ham in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is a development of three Grade II* listed buildings designed in 1955 by the British architects James Gowan and James Stirling. The Le Corbusier-influenced buildings were the architects' first major project working together and cemented their reputation as leaders amongst the Brutalist movement. The development was constructed during 1957–58 for Manousso Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ringway Centre</span> Building in Birmingham, England

Ringway Centre is a Grade B locally listed building located on Smallbrook Queensway in the city centre of Birmingham, England. The six-storey, 230 metres (750 ft) long building was designed by architect James Roberts as part of the Inner Ring Road scheme in the 1950s and is notable for its gentle sweeping curved frontal elevation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Pigott Pritchett Jr</span>

James Pigott Pritchett, known as J P Pritchett junior or J P Pritchett of Darlington, was a British architect.

Robert Maguire (1931-2019) was an influential British modernist architect and leading thinker in the British liturgical architectural movement of the Church of England. Maguire’s St Paul’s Church at Bow Common was voted the best church of the twentieth century in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham New Street Signal Box</span> Building in Birmingham, England

Birmingham New Street Signal Box is a railway signal box in Birmingham, central England, situated on the corner of Brunel and Navigation Streets and at the west end of the platforms of Birmingham New Street railway station. Opened on 3 July 1966, the brutalist structure is a grade II listed building for its architectural value and a prominent city centre landmark. It closed on 24 December 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architects' Co-Partnership</span> Firm of English Architects

The Architects' Co-Partnership (ACP) is a firm of English architects, founded in 1939 as the Architects' Cooperative Partnership by recent graduates of the Architectural Association School of Architecture. It encouraged teamwork, and set out to be a practice in which all members would be equal.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Historic England. "Dunelm House including landing stage, steps and attached walls (Grade II) (1477064)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 20 July 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 Engelbrecht, Gavin (9 July 2021). "Durham University's Brutalist student building gets Grade II listed status". The Northern Echo.
  3. 1 2 Pevsner, Nikolaus, The Buildings of England: County Durham (2nd ed. 1983, revised by Elizabeth Williamson), Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, pp.233-234
  4. 1 2 Moore, Rowan (12 February 2017). "Save Dunelm House from the wrecking ball". The Observer.
  5. "Legendary music venue will re-open to public for events". The Northern Echo. 4 February 2005. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  6. Mckay, Neil (5 November 2008). "All Right Now for Free tribute show". The Journal. Newcastle. Archived from the original on 24 December 2015. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  7. "Awards and Commendations". Architects Co-Partnership. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 28 October 2006.
  8. Durham City Council, City of Durham Local Plan, accessed 5 November 2006
  9. Lloyd, Chris (6 February 2021). "The story of Dunelm House and Kingsgate Bridge". The Northern Echo.
  10. Hill, Laura (15 December 2016). "Ugly or iconic? Durham's student union building could be demolished". The Chronicle.
  11. Lloyd, Chris (30 December 2016). "Has time run out for university's concrete jumble?". The Northern Echo.
  12. "Listing Success for Durham's Magnificent Dunelm House". Twentieth Century Society. 8 July 2021.
  13. Burman, Theo. "Students' Union building receives Grade II protections after four-year campaign". Palatinate. Archived from the original on 10 July 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2021.