Description

2-part offices and department store with linking archway. Materially en suite:

NORTH BUILDING: (NS 5881 6578):

Alec S Heathcote of Manchester, 1914. 4-storey classical corner building, 3- by 8-bays, with podium-effect and with twin Italianate towers to Sauchiehall Street. Lower floors united materially with glass curtain wall to street (display windows) with fluted dividing metal frieze and deep polished granite fascia above 1st floor, creating apparently airy podium for more solid super-structure. 2nd and 3rd floors united in red sandstone ashlar with channelled pilaster strips and giant order piers between floors dividing bays, entablature (mutuled cornice) and blocking course.

N (SAUCHIEHALL STREET) ELEVATION: 3-bay principal elevation. Modern alteration at ground to centre. 2nd and 3rd floors with recessed tripartite window to centre, outer lights blind with stylised capitals to giant order dividing piers, metal bands dividing floors with saltire to centre apron, decorative bronze railings shielding recess. Outer bays rising as pyramidally-roofed corner towers with channelled quoins, narrow windows and carved saltire panels; square towerheads with tripartite windows and blank, panel and sheild aprons; metal roofs and flagpole finials.

E (HOPE STREET) ELEVATION: 8-bay. Ground and 1st floor in continuous bands of display windows with entrances to outer bays. 2nd and 3rd floors with 5 broad windowed bays to centre, flanked by narrow windows, giant order piers dividing (as N elevation), and floors divided by metal band. Ashlar outer bays of masonry, channelled quoins, carved panels. Panelled tablet over centre bay. Outer tower bay to right detailed as N elevation.

Plate glass glazing in metal casement windows. Grey slates, coped brick stacks with cans.

INTERIOR: some decorative cornices and panelled dadoes in situ.

ARCHWAY: linking North and South buildings over Sauchiehall Lane facing Hope Street. Classical red sandstone ashlar monumental semicircular arch, spanning between 2nd and 3rd floors, framed by channelled quoins of adjoining buildings, with keystone and tripartite window to enclosed passage above. Blocking course continuous with North building.

SOUTH BUILDING: (NS 5880 6575): A Graham Henderson (Keppie Henderson), 1929. Art Deco. 4-storeywarehouse, 3 x 5 unequal bays. Polished red ashlar, rusticated in outer bays flanking windows, polished granite ground floor with plate glass shop windows and fascia. Metal casement windows and frieze between floors cast by Walter Macfarlane & Co.

ELEVATION TO BATH STREET: wide central, narrow outer bays with continuous glazing rising to incised frieze and pierced parapet. Central bay shallow canted flanked by quarter round fluted strips, projecting eaves cornice.

ELEVATION TO HOPE STREET: similar detailing, 3 wide central bays divided by incised piers; narrow outer bays with bipartite glazing set in cavetto recesses.

INTERIOR: timber-lined walls. Coffered, corniced ceilings. Wrought-iron double-lift shaft.

Statement of Interest

The Watt Brothers building, comprising offices and department store and arch over Sauchiehall Lane.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17809123

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014