Dundonald House, Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast, BT4 3SU

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large, imposing International Style government office complex of 1961-3 by Robert Hanna Gibson, consisting of two long -mainly Portland limestone clad- overlapping blocks, one of twelve storeys and rectangular the other seven and subtly curved, linked by a central 'seven'-storey entrance cube. Built for the NI Ministry of Agriculture it is still used as civil service offices.

The building is set within a largely unaltered open parkland site on the southern side of the Stormont Estate, surrounded by car parking and two single-storey prefabricated buildings. Originally access to the grounds opened directly off the Upper Newtownards Road and consequently main entrance to the building was on the west side of the linking block. This access was subsequently closed and the Stoney Road entrance, on the eastern boundary, became the main vehicular access. Dundonald House is composed of three reinforced concrete framed blocks. The block to the south side rises to 12 stories while that to the north side, which is slightly curved, is 7 stories high. The western side of the linking block contains a double height ground entrance lobby with five storeys over and slightly set back, an additional roof level pavilion; the eastern side rises to 14 stories (the upper two floors are plant areas). The top level of the southern block contains the canteen, and the floors are slightly set back on the east and west sides. All are set over a basement.

Set slightly to the east side, a tunnel extends the entire length of the building with domed rooflights (a later addition) set at the building ground level along its length; at either end, open ramps rise back to ground level.

The north and south wings are off-set and abut the linking block on its north and south faces respectively.

There are four pedestrian entrances. The main entrance is on the west side of the linking block while the staff car park entrance is on the east side. There are two further entrances on the west side, one to the north of the north block and one to the south of the south block; these are at the foot of stair well and are now used as emergency exits. Service entrances open off the basement tunnel.

Fenestration, to a degree, follows function. The glazing to the general office areas in the north and south blocks is arranged in wide groups of three, whereas windows to the more prestigious office areas, contained in the linking block, are square openings punctured into the Portland limestone façade. Ancillary accommodation such as stores, and toilets have high-level rows of windows. Stairwells have vertical glazing panels. Entrances areas are fully glazed.

Fenestration to general office areas on the east and west facades, though not identical, is very similar. In the central sections, high-level windows that light the basement combine with ground floor windows to create a subtle plinth effect. In the upper levels (levels 1-10 in the south block and levels 1-6 in the north block), the rows of glazing to the general office areas are arranged in threes however, this varies between the blocks. The north block has a horizontal emphasis created with windows and mullions resting on full width horizontal bands.
The south block has a marked vertical emphasis created when mullions extend continuously from top to bottom. The top level of the taller south block is set back.

The fenestration at the ends of the North and South block are not original and were re-clad around 2000. Where possible the Portland stone was re-used, however the other tiling cladding and windows are all replacement.

West Elevation

The main entrance is set on the western side of the ground floor of the linking block. A wide flight of four steps (a later addition) rises to an entrance platform. There are three sets of paired entrance doors. A minimalist cantilever canopy sails out over the platform; to the left side a rather crude later addition has been added to give protection to a later wheelchair ramp. The additional section of canopy rests partly on the original cantilevered canopy and partly on square steel columns; plainly detailed bituminous felt has been added to seal the junction. The underside of original canopy is finished with mosaic tiles. There have been some changes to the area immediately in front of the entrance, which was originally plainer. Here, flanking the steps are screen walls with square pillars; the walls and pillars have matching copestones. Flanking these walls are wide planters; that to the left side has been somewhat altered to integrate a later wheelchair ramp.

The linking block projects forward at this point and the upper floors are supported on exposed double height, red-marble clad columns. The upper front façade and the exposed portion of the south face of the linking block have hole-in-wall square windows, and, above the entrance the governmental coat of arms. Set back at roof level is a glazed pavilion with an in-situ concrete roof with an up-turned front edge. A glazed link-corridor extends back to join to the rear of the linking block.

Set back on the left side is the west face of the 7-storey, curved north block. The central area is composed of rows of glazing with horizontal emphasis (previously described) and this is flanked with a stairwell to the south and a stairwell and ancillary accommodation (formerly a toilet block) to the north. To the left side of the south stairwell is a full height vertical tiled panel while to the right is a full height vertical glazed panel. Each upper floor of the toilet accommodation has high-level rows of glazing set on ceramic panels. To the ground floor of this section is a fully glazed secondary entrance with a small, cantilevered canopy.

Set back on the right side is the 11-storey south block. On the far right, creating a stop-end is the stairwell and ancillary accommodation; as before, this has high-level rows of glazing set on ceramic panels. The right-hand side houses general office accommodation and has rows of glazing with vertical emphasis) as described above).

North Elevation

The north façade is plainly clad with Portland limestone panels having a central, full height glazed panel that lights the stairwell. This elevation was re-clad around 2000. Where possible the Portland stone was re-used however the windows are all replacement.

East Elevation

The right side comprises the east façade of the north block; the curve is convex but otherwise identical to the west façade.

To the centre is the east side of the linking block. The centre of this façade is plainly clad in Portland limestone panels; there are only three openings (vents for lifts) and these are on the 13th storey; the small square openings each have raised Portland limestone surrounds. To the left side a Portland limestone-clad chimneystack rises above roof level. The centre and the left side of the central block rise to the 14th level. The off-set right side has a glazed entrance screen to ground level with squared windows above; this rises to the 7th level. This former rear entrance doors have been changed and a functionally detailed recently added entrance canopy and ramp added the full length of the linking block.

The left side of the façade is composed of the east side of the south block. This has general rows of glazing to the centre (as before described). On the right side is a vertical strip glazing to the stairwell while the stop-end to the right side is composed of the stairwell and ancillary accommodation as before the ancillary accommodation has high-level rows of windows set on tiled panels.

South Elevation

The south façade matches that to the north with a central, vertical glazing panel in plain Portland limestone cladding. This elevation was re-clad around 2000. Where possible the Portland stone was re-used, however, the windows are all replacement.

Roofs

Roofs are flat with raised parapets. The South block originally had rooflights over the restaurant. Rainwater is carried down within the structure with no external rainwater goods except on the rooftop 'pavilion' which have circular section cast-iron downpipes and fixings. At either ends of the roof on both the north and south blocks is a featureless metal clad 'box' (originally covered in copper cladding) containing water cisterns and lift mechanisms; these are single-storey and have rounded corners. Set on the roof is a UV monitoring station for Northern Ireland, (linked to the Met office in London). Set back from the parapet on the linking block roof is a small 'sick-bay' pavilion; this is entirely glazed and has an overhanging concrete roof with curved upturned to the west side. A flag pole rises through a circular hole in the concrete roof of the pavilion, held in place against strong winds by thin stainless steel fins set in a radial pattern with a central collar.

Materials

Walls are clad in Portland limestone, precast concrete panels, with various ceramic clad panels. The original tiles were pale green, but the two ends of the North and South blocks have been replaced in recent times in dark grey tiles. Roofs are covered with bituminous felt. Original windows appear to be galvanised steel with original catches and tilt/turn hinges; replacement glazing appears to be aluminium. Secondary glazing has been added to the office areas.

Gates I Railings / Site

Front and rear gates and screens are similar. Gate pillars are square and are clad in Portland limestone with stone caps and a shallow projecting plinth. Vehicular gates are large and plain; outer edges run on castors. At either side are matching pedestrian gates. To the right side of the original front gate is a revolving 'one way' security pedestrian gate. This entrance is of long-standing, being on the site of the entrance to Rose Park, a pre-1830s country residence whose grounds were later subsumed into those of Stormont Castle. A c.1858-60 gate screen and accompanying lodge were removed in 1962.

The southern and eastern boundaries are protected with 'spear' style metal railings; these are set on a copings and have diagonal braces to the rear side. Gates and gate pillars have metal spikes.

Adjacent to both are vehicular entrances are recent barriers and GRP security huts.

Pavements are finished with concrete flagstones; roads and parking areas are finished with tarmac.

Walls limestone / precast concrete panels (noted as terrazzo panels) / ceramic cladding
Roof bituminous felt.
Windows steel/aluminium / PVC
RWG mainly internal

Setting

Dundonald House is located approximately four kilometres east of the centre of Belfast city. It is on a flat site between the southern slopes of the Holywood Hills and the northern side of a major arterial route, the Upper Newtownards Road. It is set within open parkland site on the eastern side of the Stormont Estate predominantly surrounded by car-parking. The
setting has witnessed some changes over the years, most notably the creation of additional car-parking space to the south and east, alterations to the area immediately around the main entrance in the form of pillars and planters (see above), and the placing of two low-level modular buildings to the south and east; however, the majority of the green space and planting remains in place and continues to compliment the overall composition.

Historical information

Dundonald House, described by Dr. Paul Larmour as ‘one of the first big modern blocks in Ulster’, was built in 1961-63 to a design by Robert Hanna Gibson (1890-1979), with E.D. Taylor the associate architect and Messrs Higgs and Hill of London the contractors. Excavation work began in May 1960, the foundation stone laid on 4 March 1961, and the building was officially opened by the Governor of Northern Ireland, Lord Wakehurst, on 19 April 1963.

Described by the 'Belfast Telegraph' at the time of its opening as ‘an eyecatching flash of white Portland stone and Mourne granite against the green background of the Stormont grounds and Knock golf course’, the 241,000 sq ft (5½-acre) complex was intended as the workplace for 1,600 civil servants from three Ministries, (Agriculture, Education, and Labour and National Insurance), of the then Northern Ireland Government, who up until this point had been scattered in various buildings throughout Belfast.

The building was (apparently) opened to staff in June 1962, with the Ministry of Education initially occupying the lower four levels of the north wing, the Ministry of Labour in the three floors above this, and the Ministry of Agriculture taking up ten floors of the south wing, above which - the ‘Telegraph’ reported - was ‘Belfast’s only “skyline” restaurant stretching the full width of the 12th floor and offering staff a dizzy view across the rooftops of the city.’

The connecting block, as well as acting as the main entrance and access point for both wings, housed the suites of the three Ministers, with the main conference room - ‘one of the show pieces of the building’ - extending the full width of the second floor and having ‘flush panelling in Burma teak-faced timber, brown carpet and dark green curtains’. On the fifth floor was the ‘automatic and manual’ telephone exchange for the building, and at the very top ‘a glazed screen penthouse…reached through a glass corridor from the seventh floor of the block’ which housed the medical officer’s quarters and provided ‘a haven of rest for anyone taken suddenly ill or feeling off colour’. The south and west fronts of the entrance hall were enclosed with a two-storey screen of ‘black and gold anodised aluminium double glazed screen’, with three sets of similarly finished inner and outer double doors on the west front ‘each set with a low porch lined in botticino marble’, and the ‘square columns rising two storeys immediately outside the glazed screen on the south and west fronts…finished in golden travertine marble’ and resting ‘on a low Roman stone podium at ground floor level.’ Somewhat more mundanely, the complex also featured ‘a tunnel entrance to the basement for the quick dispatch and collection of school examination papers’ from which there was a ‘book lift leading to the offices of the [Education] branch.’

The 10-acre site meanwhile, set within the grounds of Stormont Castle and most recently utilized for the rearing of poultry, was laid out with a one-way traffic system operating from clockwise from the entrance on Upper Newtownards Road to the exit on Stoney Road. The entrance had originally served as the principal access to the Castle itself and the May 1960 site drawings show that the c.1858-60 gate screen and lodge were intended to be retained; but both were pulled down in 1962, due to their ‘apparently interfering with the approach to the new Government building’.

Dundonald House has witnessed alteration over the years, the main changes being the replacement of some of the cladding and some window frames, the addition of planters, ramps etc. on the immediate approach to the entrance, whilst internally, aspects of the present layout differ from the 1959-61 plans. Within the grounds, additional car-parking has been created to the south and east, with the former bus lay-bye and parking area to the west now exclusively given over to the latter, and two low-level modular buildings have been constructed to the south and east respectively. Map evidence shows that additional structures were added to the immediate north and to the south of Dundonald House sometime between 1966 and 1977, but these have since been removed. The complex remains a government office.

The architect, Belfast-born R.H. Gibson, attended RBAI and trained under Henry Seaver, with whom he formed the firm of Seaver & Gibson in the early 1930s. He was later in partnership with J.H. Stevenson c.1940-42 and E.D. Taylor from 1949 until he retired c.1964. In collaboration with J.G. Smyth he produced several unexecuted designs for war memorials in Scotland and England in the 1920s and collaborated with John McGeagh in 1935 on the winning design for the extension the Belfast Municipal Sanatorium at Whiteabbey. His influences and inspirations were varied, his first distinctive major work, the War Memorial Hall in Ballinderry, Co. Antrim, of 1924, showing touches of Clough Williams-Ellis, with another memorable hall, with the Heyn Memorial Hall of 1928-29, decidely Lutyens-like. In contrast, his 1931 St Christopher's C of I church in Mersey Street, Belfast, is a minimalist take on Romanesque, with St. Jude's Parish Hall, Ravenhill Road, Belfast, (1933-34), blending a pared down form of Lombardic and Neo-Georgian and St. John Evangelist C of I, Castlereagh Road, Belfast, (1955-57), Neo-Gothic.

An active individual in public life, Gibson was President of the RSUA from 1931 to 1933, 1946-48 and 1950-52, and was prominent in other public bodies including the Ulster Arts Club, of which he was President in 1933 and 1934, and the Government Building Committee. Dundonald House, which he worked upon with Taylor, was his last (and possibly largest) commission before retirement.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS6/1/60/2 OS 6in county map 1857
2 OSNI OS8-30-3A-13 OS town plan of Belfast, 1883-84
3 OSNI OS10-1-60-8-3 OS 25in town plan of Belfast, 1931
4 OS sheet 130-16, 1954-55, 1958-59, 1977
5 Original plans and drawings of Dundonald House, Sept-Dec 1959, with revisions mainly of Jan 1961, and, (for the basement level) of Apr? 1963; May 1960 with revisions of Aug? 1960? (site layout)
6 ‘Irish Builder and Technical Journal’, 28 May 1960, 27 April, 11 May 1963
7 ‘New government offices, Dundonald House, Stormont, Belfast 4’ (Official building description), April 1963 [Copy on HED file]
8 4 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 18 April 1963, p.6,19 April 1963, p.2
9 ‘Opening of Dundonald House (Official government press release), 19 April 1963 [Copy on HED file]

Sources- Secondary sources
10 Larmour, Paul, 'Belfast- An illustrated architectural guide', (Belfast, 1987), pp.3, 28, 82, 112
11 Dean, J.A.K., ‘The gate lodges of Ulster - a gazetteer, (UAHS, Belfast, 1994), p.96
12 Brett, C.E.B., 'The buildings of County Antrim', (Belfast, 1996), p.251

Websites
13 Irish Architectural Archive http://www.dia.ie/architects/view/2146/GIBSON-ROBERTHANNA
http://www.dia.ie/works/view/45570/building/CO.+ANTRIM%2C+BELFAST%2C+NEWTOWNARDS+ROAD+UPPER%2C+DUNDONALD+HOUSE (Accessed 2011.12.15)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
E. Spatial Organisation
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
T. Historic Importance
Z. Rarity
R. Age
S. Authenticity
V. Authorship

Evaluation

Large, International style government office complex of 1961-3 by Robert Hanna Gibson, consisting of two long -mainly Portland limestone clad- overlapping blocks, one of twelve storeys and rectangular the other of seven and curved, linked by a central seven and fourteen-storey entrance cube. Despite some minor changes, Dundonald House is a well-preserved example of a now rare early 1960s International Style building with effective massing, simple detailing, and an imposing presence within its designed open parkland landscape setting. The curving of the northern block is unexpected and adds interest to the structure, as do the intact feature canopies and designed roofscape. Described by Dr. Paul Larmour as 'one of the first big modern blocks in Ulster', the building is a scarce, outstanding example of its kind within the Northern Ireland context, and as such a structure of considerable architectural and historical interest.

General comments

Previously recorded as HB26/13/037