Reasons for Designation
The Henry Price Residence is recommended for designation at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Construction Interest: It is a striking construction with great presence, and successfully overcomes the difficulties of the restricted site with great flair, achieving a dramatic presence and a strong statement at the outer limit of the university campus
* Historic Interest: as a very early example of a move away from the traditional form of student accommodation with common rooms and dining facilities, to self-catering student flats
* Intactness: It is remarkably intact and has retained its original footprint and the majority of its external appearance, with only minor alterations to the internal layout
* Architectural Interest: Although it is physically separate from the other buildings in the CPB campus, it echoes the dimensions and architectural style of the rest, and is recognisably from the same stable, and also forms part of the overall plan proposed by the architects in their original brief
* Group Value: the building has a very strong visual and literal connection with the picturesque cemetery landscape to the east, which contains listed monuments and buildings.
Details
LEEDS
714-1/0/10108 LEEDS UNIVERSITY
10-JUN-10 HENRY PRICE RESIDENCE
GV II
University hall of residence, 1964, by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon with structural engineers Flint and Neill: Christof Bon was the lead architect for this building.
MATERIALS: constructed of load-bearing brick with cavity walls, concrete floors and concrete slated timber roof. Windows are replacements in grey aluminium frames.
PLAN: the building is extremely long and narrow and consists of 27 bays on six floors raised above the pre-existing stone wall of St Georges Fields former Leeds General Cemetery (Listed Grade II), aligned NNE to SSW, which runs the whole length of the building. The brick walls are supported on concrete pillars with cantilevers and float just above the stone wall. Concrete floors extend across the width of the building, and concrete infills below the windows. The stone wall is located towards the rear of the long axis of the building. At the north end is a separate stair tower in concrete and glass topped by a pyramidal concrete water tank.
EXTERIOR: The elevation to St Georges Fields has a covered walkway at ground floor alongside the stone wall which is pierced by four entrances, each with a glazed door and full height side window. Windows on the five upper floors are aluminium framed, with fixed top and bottom lights and generally two horizontally pivoting centre lights, save above the entrances, where recessed windows form a ladder in the stairwells, with landings between the floors. The brick pillars to either side of the stairwells are wider than elsewhere. The top (6th) floor is not visible from this side, being covered by the pitched roof.
At the road-facing elevation, the ground floor largely consists of storage spaces for waste bins, washing areas, etc, with some enclosed office space and entrance lobbies to the five staircases, added in 2007. Cantilevered concrete cross beams project forward and support brick pillars joined by windows, which rise to the 5th floor. Windows are similar to the St Georges Fields elevation except for those next to the stair wells which have three lights. Alternate brick pillars are pierced by narrow single windows. The top floor is set back behind a section of pitched roof.
The south end elevation is in brick, with an asymmetric gable end. The end of the stone wall is visible and supports the upper floors alongside steel and concrete columns. Each of the five upper floors has a central window similar to those to the east and west with a small slit window alongside.
Attached to the north end is the separate stair tower, trapezoid in plan, with alternating bands of concrete and glass, stepped on the west side and topped by a pyramidal concrete water tank. The stairs were originally open-sided and the glass is a later addition.
INTERIOR: each of the five sets of concrete stairs leads to a pair of flats on each floor, each arranged along a central corridor with a fire escape door at the far end. Stairs have terrazzo floors and metal balusters with wooden handrails; the walls are painted white on the exposed brick. The flats are arranged in self-contained units of generally eight single rooms with a shared living room and kitchen. Each pair of rooms shares a wet-room shower/toilet with access from both sides. There is some original built-in furniture in the bedrooms; the kitchen/living areas have been refurbished and extended by incorporating a former bedroom.
HISTORY: Leeds University began as the Yorkshire College of Science in 1877, becoming part of Victoria University in 1887 and an independent university in 1904. It expanded throughout the twentieth century and campus buildings were provided by a succession of architects including Alfred Waterhouse.
In 1956, the university took the opportunity to look afresh at their requirements, and undertook a limited competition to appoint new architects. Chamberlin, Powell and Bon won this competition and were appointed in 1959. They produced a Development Plan for the new campus which was based on interviews with staff and flow charts of students' movements through the precinct. This plan, published in 1960 and revised in 1963, offered a model for the study of university campuses throughout the 1960s. The realisation of the masterplan was only ever partial, and it was modified a number of times.
Two residential blocks, Charles Morris Hall and Henry Price Residence, were completed in 1965 and 1964 respectively: they were intended as the first of an extended provision of accommodation close to the university. CPB looked at the relative costs of providing residences outside the city centre, and concluded that the extra transport costs and the need for more facilities away from the main campus offset the extra cost of city centre land, and further that an integrated approach would bring benefits in terms of building a community. Further expansion of residential accommodation was planned between the main campus and the Henry Price Residence, but this was halted by a planning appeal in 1975 which resulted in the establishment of a Conservation Area covering the surviving terraces of houses. The area thus preserved was incorporated into the university, but this portion of the masterplan was restricted to the provision of the two residential buildings.
The Henry Price Residence was originally two bays shorter than was actually built, and the stair block and water tank at the north end was a later addition to the plan. A major refurbishment took place in 2007-8.
SOURCES
Stefan Muthesius: The Postwar University (2000), 70-80, 91-94
Tony Birks: Building the New Universities (1972), 9-19
Susan Wrathmell: Pevsner Architectural Guides; Leeds (2005), 180-183
'University of Leeds', The Architectural Review, Vol 155, No 923 (Jan 1974)
Chamberlin, Powell & Bon: University of Leeds Development Plan (1960)
Chamberlin, Powell & Bon: University of Leeds Development Plan Review (1963)
Carey Jones Architects: University of Leeds Strategic Development Framework (2008, grey literature)
William Whyte: 'The Modernist Movement at the University of Leeds, 1957-1977' The Historical Journal, Vol 51, 1 (2008) p169-193.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
The Henry Price Residence is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Construction Interest: It is a striking construction with great presence, and successfully overcomes the difficulties of the restricted site with great flair, achieving a dramatic presence and a strong statement at the outer limit of the university campus
* Historic Interest: as a very early example of a move away from the traditional form of student accommodation with common rooms and dining facilities, to self-catering student flats
* Intactness: It is remarkably intact and has retained its original footprint and the majority of its external appearance, with only minor alterations to the internal layout
* Architectural Interest: Although it is physically separate from the other buildings in the CPB campus, it echoes the dimensions and architectural style of the rest, and is recognisably from the same stable, and also forms part of the overall plan proposed by the architects in their original brief
* Group Value: the building has a very strong visual and literal connection with the picturesque cemetery landscape to the east, which contains listed monuments and buildings.
