The Twentieth Century Society

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Bangor’s ‘eyesore of the year’ the latest post-war listing in Wales

Brambell Laboratory, Bangor University – Sir Percy Thomas and Son, 1969-71

Image © Jonathan Vining

Bangor University’s brutalist Brambell Laboratory (1969-71) – derided as ‘Eyesore of the year’ upon its completion – and the University’s New Arts building (1963) have become the latest post-war listings in Wales, designated Grade II and Grade I respectively.

In 1962, architects Sir Percy Thomas and Son unveiled a masterplan for what the Daily Post described as a “space-age university college”, with the whole science campus rebuilt in several modern orthogonal blocks of five to ten storeys in height. Detailed planning of the Brambell Laboratory for the zoology department began in 1966, led by partner William Marsden, with Malcolm Lovibond and Keith Mainstone. It was officially opened by Lord Zuckerman, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government, on 9 November 1971.

Its brutalist sensibility is based on a clear expression of structure and materials to create a memorable, almost temple-like image: a colonnade of thin rectilinear columns in bush hammered concrete, holding aloft an inverted ziggurat of cantilevered upper levels, with a blind redbrick core below. Internally the idiosyncratic main stair is formed in board-marked concrete with rounded, triangular openings through its structural core. This uncompromising style evidently divided opinion, with one local newspaper article awarding it ‘Eyesore of the year 1970’, and sarcastically asking “What is it? A cement works? The headquarters of the secret police? No, its the new zoology department on Deiniol Road.”

The Brambell building remains in use for teaching and research in zoology, biology and related subjects. Since 2004 it has been the main location of Northwest Cancer Research’s Bangor Institute.

‘Eyesore of the year 1970’

Image credit: Modern Mooch

‘Best and largest Zoology department in the UK’

Francis WR Brambell (1901-1970) was born in Dublin and obtained the first PhD awarded by Trinity College Dublin in 1924. In 1930 he was appointed head of the Zoology Department in Bangor. In a distinguished career his main discoveries concerned how immunity to disease is passed from mothers to children in embryo. In 1965 the first Harold Wilson government appointed Brambell to lead an inquiry into the welfare of livestock animals following a public outcry about factory farming methods. The subsequent Brambell Report established ‘five freedoms’ still in widespread use as a basis for ethical animal husbandry. Brambell was heavily involved in the planning of the new zoology building and in arguments over its cost, he was particularly adamant about the need for it to contain a teaching museum. As he died during its construction, a decision was quickly taken to name the building in his honour.

At the opening ceremony Lord Zuckerman called it the best and largest Zoology department in the UK and anticipated that with the world population expected to double by the end of the century, there would be new and growing demands on the biological sciences.

Brambell Laboratory, Bangor University – Sir Percy Thomas and Son, 1969-71

Image © Jonathan Vining

New Arts Building

In addition to the new designation of the Bramball Laboratory, the existing list description of the Grade I listed Main Arts Building has been amended to include the 1960s New Arts wing, also by Sir Percy Thomas and Son.

The main purpose-built college at the University dates to 1907-11 and was designed by Henry T Hare, in a ‘late Renaissance character’, taking full advantage of the sloping hilltop site with two Oxbridge style quadrangles. The building was officially opened 14 June 1911 by George V having cost £175,000. The intention was that more funds would be raised to allow Hare to return and add a further two wings to complete the larger of the two quadrangles, providing space for the College’s science departments. However these plans were frustrated, first by the First World War and then by the architect’s death in 1921.

While the University later established a separate sciences campus on Deiniol Road during the interwar period, later the location of the Brambell Lab, it was not until the 1960s that the larger quadrangle on the original college building was completed in two phases by Percy Thomas. This came during a period of UK wide expansion in higher education provision. An extension to the library was completed in 1963, and an Arts and Humanities teaching wing with main entrance completed 1968. The whole complex is now generally known as ‘Main Arts’.

New Arts Building, Bangor University – Sir Percy Thomas and Son (1963-68)

Image credit: Dr Robert Proctor

The extension takes the form a flat roofed, concrete framed Modernist cuboid, with two storeys facing the quadrangle and an additional basement level facing Penrallt road. This is clad in local slate stone blocks in a variety of shades laid in snecked courses, to match the 1911 library building by Henry Hare

A shorter square two storey block in the same materials was also built 1963 and used as plinth for one end of the 1968 extension, completing the main quadrangle by closing off the northwest side, with return towards southeast to join with gable end of entrance block in front of Pritchard Jones Hall. This is in a Brutalist style with an expressed bush hammered concrete frame, steel-framed glazing and a trapezoidal felt roof.

New Arts Building, Bangor University – Sir Percy Thomas and Son (1963-68)

Image credit: Dr Robert Proctor