Description

Lorimer and Matthew, 1927-29. 2-storey and basement, 7-bay, symmetrical T-plan university laboratory building. The building is harled with channelled quoins and droved ashlar dressings. There is a cill course to the 2nd floor and an eaves course.

The east (entrance) elevation has an advanced central bay with steps and curvilinear walls with cast iron lamp standards at the base. There is a keystoned and architraved segmental arch to the porch. The timber entrance doors are 2-leaf with a 4-pane fanlight. Above the porch is a round-arch single window and a wrought iron balcony incorporating a rosette motif. There is a figurative relief carving to the curvilinear Dutch gable. The north and south elevations are 10-bay with 2-bay returns, forming the T-plan. There are synthetic stone aprons between windows of 1st and 2nd storeys. The 3-bay west (rear) elevation has steps up to single door, a single window to 1st floor with synthetic stone aprons between the storeys, and a door to the centre at basement level.

The entrance elevation has timber sash and case windows in a variety of small-pane glazing patterns, principally 16- and 20-pane. The windows to rear have steel frames. Grey slate to piended roof, swept at eaves with beak skewputts. Corniced belfry with ogival roof in N side of rear roof. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior was seen in 2015. The entrance hall has square-plan supporting columns. The main staircase, off-set to left of entrance hall, has synthetic stone steps, a curved, wrought-iron balustrade and handrail with twisted uprights and scroll motifs at intervals.

Statement of Interest

The Crew Building (former Institute of Animal Genetics) is part of an associated group of buildings for science education at the University of Edinburgh's 'King's Buildings' campus, designed and built between 1926 and 1932 by the important 20th century Scottish architectural partnership of Sir Robert Lorimer and John Fraser Matthew.

Stylistically, the buildings for the King's Buildings site by Lorimer and Matthew are designed in a paired-back classical style, fashionable for public buildings at the time. Lorimer and Matthew added Dutch-colonial and Arts and Craft features to the plain classical planning and plan form.

John F Matthew (1875 - 1955) was 'almost wholly responsible for the University's King's Buildings commissioned in 1927-29' (Dictionary of Scottish Architects). When Lorimer died in September 1929 he became sole partner. The figurative relief carving to the principal gable, depicting a child on a pedestal over a stylised fountain and a man and woman holding antique oil lamps up towards the child, is a distinctive feature of the entrance elevation. The curving, wrought iron balcony with rose motif is also distinctly in the manner of Robert Lorimer and is likely to be the work of Scottish ironwork specialist and Lorimer collaborator, Thomas Haddon. The interior entrance hall and central stair are finished to a high specification.

The 115 acre (45 hectare) area, formerly the site of West Mains Farm, on the southside of the city had been purchased in 1919 by the University for the relocation and expansion of its science departments. The sense of uncertainty during the years between the wars were felt at universities across the country, with economic austerity leading to a reduction in funding for scientific research. Increasing demand for laboratory facilities and lack of available funds led, in 1921, to the University launching an appeal for the erection of classrooms and laboratories at what was to become the King's Buildings site. In 1928 sufficient money had become available to start building the Institute of Animal Genetics, later renamed The Crew Building. The new subject of animal genetics was not widely welcomed or supported by the scientific community in Britain at the time, but it early developments in this discipline took place in Edinburgh under the Director of the Department in Animal Breeding, Francis Albert Eley Crew (1886-1973) from 1920. The Crew Building was opened in 1930 by the Professor of Physiology, Sir Edward Sharpey-Schafer. It was refurbished for Civil Engineering in the 1990s and is currently (2015) used by the School of GeoSciences. The building spans over 1,900 square metres and comprises lecture theatres, tutorial rooms, offices, a canteen and computer rooms.

Statutory Address and Listed Building Record revised in 2016. Previously Listed as 'Mayfield Road And West Mains Road, University Of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Civil And Environmental Engineering (Formerly Animal Genetics)'.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17810119

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.

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