AN ARCHITECTURAL WALKING TOUR OF LIVERPOOL

ORIEL CHAMBERS

“Oriel Chambers [1] (Grade I) designed by the practically unknown Liverpool architect, Peter Ellis, and built in 1864 is one of the most significant buildings of its date in Europe.”1 The building is found on the corner of Water Street and Covent Garden, of which these street elevations are enhanced by slender stone mullions intricately decorated with ‘dog-tooth carving’, between these mullions are the cast iron oriel windows individually suspended in a regular and repeated grid pattern.2 The name and date of the building are displayed above the entrance [2] similar decoration at the top of the gable highlight the motto ‘stand sure’, an emblem of an oak tree with the initials T and A, of Reverend Thomas Anderson who commissioned the building.3

The construction of this office was made possible by a fire on July 3rd 1863, when its predecessor Covent Buildings was destroyed.  Covent Buildings was a six-storey building with cellars which extended a significant distance down Covent Garden.4

Liverpool Heritage Bureau explain how the functional design of the building caused great controversy upon completion: 

“it was described as a ‘great abortion’ and ‘an agglomeration of protruding plate glass bubbles.’ Today we appreciate its honesty, its elegant detailing and its reflective qualities, and we can admire its revolutionary impact.” 5

The reason that the building is now held in such high regard is because of its construction and innovative design, Quentin Hughes describes:

“This is the most significant office building in Liverpool and one of the most important buildings in the world because, both stylistically and structurally, it foreshadows by many years the work of the Modern Movement in architecture.” 6

Hughes states that Oriel Chambers is one of the most important buildings in the world because its construction methods can be directly linked to the skyscrapers of America.  Charles Herbert Reilly’s Liverpool School of Architecture has many connections to America, but before this John Wellborn Root spent two years of his studies in Liverpool and it is suggested that Oriel Chambers, which was under construction at the time, may have influenced Root’s office buildings in Chicago.7 Root’s father was a merchant in Atlanta (America) and he sent his son to Merseyside for safety, at the age of 14 he attended St Mary’s Mount School which is thought to have been part of the existing St Mary's Collage in Crosby.  During this time Root befriended Peter Ellis and took great interest in Oriel Chambers, influencing his architectural career.  Root is one of the main architects responsible for the early skyscrapers in Chicago.8

 Reilly however criticised Ellis’ work, he describes Oriel Chambers in his book Some Liverpool Streets and Buildings in 1921 when he is discussing Water Street [3]:

“The oddest building in Liverpool - Oriel Chambers.  It is a sort of honeycomb of numberless plate-glass oriel windows held together by a stonework skeleton frame designed to look like cast-iron.  One feels sure it obeys every detail Mr. Ruskin’s lamp of truth - it is at once so logical and so disagreeable.  But I hope it won’t be destroyed for many years to come.  Its humour as a cellular habitation for the human insect is a distinct asset to its town.” 9

The building was also attacked in other forms of architectural press:

“The local magazine The Porcupine called Oriel Chambers ‘hard, liney and meagre’, Building News ‘a kind of green house architecture run mad’. 10

Quentin Hughes has shown concern for Peter Ellis and his architectural career stating “we can only guess what effect it may have had upon his architectural practice” and noting that Ellis began to list himself in the Gore’s Directories as both an architect and a civil engineer,11 suggesting that the damning articles written about his buildings deterred him from architectural work.  This was not the case as Robert Ainsworth and Graham Jones explain, in chapters 10 and 11 of their book In the Footsteps of Peter Ellis, he actually designed a Welsh Baptist Chapel six months after The Porcupine’s article and subsequent other buildings afterwards.  He did also take an interest in engineering work, in the process inventing a new passenger lift.12

During the Second World War, Oriel Chambers was struck by a bomb and partially destroyed, this exposed the famous structure which is why the building is now famous, Sharples explains:

“Liverpool’s most celebrated Victorian office block, reviled in its day, but elevated to the stars of a Modernist icon after bomb damage in 1941 exposed its cast-iron frame and attracted the attention of historians.  In 1969 Pevsner described it as ‘one of the most remarkable buildings of its date in Europe’.” 13

“The bomb damaged north part was replaced in 1959-61 with a sensitive addition by James & Bywaters.”14 [4] This was their interpretation of the Oriel Chambers building and Peter Ellis’ oriel windows [5].15 

Another of the achievements of this building is the cladding system of the internal courtyard, which lends itself to the start of the skyscraper movement, Hughes describes:

”the courtyard elevations are years in advance of their date.  Long bands of plain undecorated windows are cantilevered 2ft 6in (76cm) out from the H stanchion frame which lies between the stone cross walls of the building.  This facade is thus a very early example of cantilevered cladding design.” 16

References

1. Liverpool Heritage Bureau, Buildings of Liverpool, p. 22.

2. Q. Hughes, Seaport: Architecture & Townscape in Liverpool, p. 59.

3. RIBA City Tour, Gateway to the World, Appendix D, lines 251-252.

4. R. Ainsworth and G. Jones, In the Footsteps of Peter Ellis: Architect of Oriel Chambers and 16 Cook Street, Liverpool, p. 133.

5. Liverpool Heritage Bureau, Buildings of Liverpool, p. 22.

6. Q. Hughes, Liverpool: City of Architecture, p. 86.

7. J. Sharples, Charles Reilly & the Liverpool School of Architecture 1904-1933, p. 28.

8. RIBA City Tour, Gateway to the World, Appendix D, lines 244-247.

9. C.H. Reilly, Some Liverpool Streets and Buildings in 1921, p. 41.

10. J. Sharples, Liverpool (Pevsner Architectural Guides), p. 19.

11. R. Ainsworth and G. Jones, In the Footsteps of Peter Ellis: Architect of Oriel Chambers and 16 Cook Street, Liverpool, pp. 138-139.

12. R. Ainsworth and G. Jones, In the Footsteps of Peter Ellis: Architect of Oriel Chambers and 16 Cook Street, Liverpool, pp. 169-179.

13. J. Sharples, Liverpool (Pevsner Architectural Guides), p. 171.

14. J. Sharples, Liverpool (Pevsner Architectural Guides), p. 171.

15. RIBA City Tour, Gateway to the World, Appendix D, lines 235-238.

16. Q. Hughes, Liverpool: City of Architecture, p. 86.