13741

 

II  

Designated  

19/05/1975  

22/07/2025  

Cathays Park Welsh Government Offices (Crown Buildings)  

 

Cardiff  

Castle  

 

Cathays Park  

317996  

177253  

N  

At north end of Cathays Park occupying the entire block bounded by Corbett Road to the north, Museum Avenue to the east, College Road to the south and King Edward VII Avenue to the west. Precisely aligned with Alexandra Gardens to the immediate south and Cardiff City Hall beyond.  

Civil  

Modern  

Government offices, front block built 1935 to 1938 as Welsh Board of Health, rear block and connecting bridge added 1972 to 1979 for the Welsh Office. Cathays Park developed as a civic centre from the beginning of the twentieth century, inspired by ‘grid-iron’ plan in North American examples such as Ottawa and Philadelphia. In 1912 a ‘Vision of the Civic Centre’ published in the Western Mail showed the north of Cathays Park dominated by a large Welsh Houses of Parliament. Some preliminary ground works for a Welsh Insurance Commission building took place in 1914 before the scheme was abandoned due to the First World War. The Welsh Board of Health building was designed by Peter Kydd Hanton (1884-1963) of the Office of Works in 1934, and was opened on St David’s Day 1938 by the Minister of Health Sir Kingsley Wood (1881-1943). The remaining park land to the north of the Board of Health became known as the Crown Gardens. In 1965 the first Secretary of State for Wales Jim Griffiths (1890-1975) formed the Welsh Office to bring together devolved government functions in Wales. The Welsh Office shared the Cathays Park building with the Welsh Board of Health until the latter was dissolved in 1969. In the early hours of 25 May 1968, the empty building was bombed by Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru on the same weekend as another attack on a water pipeline connecting lake Vyrnwy to Liverpool. By 1970 the Welsh Office had more than 500 Cardiff-based civil servants and was considering where to put them all as its powers and responsibilities continued to accumulate. The ‘New Crown Offices’ were designed by the Cardiff firm Alex Gordon & Partners and began construction on Crown Gardens in 1972. Alex Gordon was the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects at this time. The superintending architect was KA Brundle and the project architect was AJ Rosser. The building was constructed in two phases, first by John Laing Ltd and then by Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd. The much larger new building was inspired by American civic Brutalism such as Boston City Hall whilst having many points of reference to the Board of Health building and its Classical neighbours. In 1980 the exiled South African anarchist architect Alan Lipman attacked the ‘colonial’ and ‘Orwellian’ new offices in the Architects Journal as ‘a perversely appropriate symbol of closed, inaccessible government’, giving the impression of 'bureaucracy under siege'. The Crown Buildings were transferred along with most of the Welsh Office’s former powers to the National Assembly for Wales formed in 1999, later known as the Senedd. The older south block is generally known as CP1 and the newer north block as CP2.  

Welsh Board of Health (CP1) is a long slim three storey building (plus concealed basement and attic) facing Alexandra Gardens, 1970s cuboid closed bridge to rear links first floor level to CP2, which has six stories (plus four below ground). CP2 is just slightly wider than CP1 and its upper stories are recessed to give an impression of matching height. Both blocks faced in Portland stone with bronze or aluminium window panels. Hipped slate roof to CP1, CP2 is flat roofed with sides to recessed upper stories clad in bronze-tinted aluminium. Board of Health front elevation of 15 bays. Each bay with tall rectangular glazed opening extending vertically downwards through 3 main floors and flanked by plain pilasters of equal width to windows; entablature with modillion cornice. Doorway in centre bay with royal coat of arms above, reached by wide flight of stairs with Art Deco bronze lampstands topped by dragons. Recessed attic storey with 13 square glazed openings and with carved panel to each end bay depicting winged caduceus flanked by dragons. Against each return, a projecting portico rising to same height as main entablature of south-east elevation; giant pilasters, space between each pilaster enclosed by a glazed opening of similar proportion to those on south-east elevation; central doorway with stone lion above holding shield with Gwynedd four lions coat of arms; entablature. Side doors flanked by bronze lampstands. Heraldic Shields over ground floor windows to front bear coats of arms of the 13 historic Welsh counties plus the Prince of Wales feathers, with the four pre-WW1 county boroughs represented on the side elevations. On bronze band above these are Art Deco style lion heads which continue on rear elevation. Bridge is seven bays wide measured against CP1 and three bays wide measured against CP2, supported on two massive cuboid columns near CP1. Penetrates original rear elevation of CP1 at the two bays above the columns with recess between. Blind to sides with royal coat of arms, flat roof with lights and coffered square grid to underside which shelters rear door of CP1 and main entrance to CP2. A small security lodge with shallow hipped roof to either side of bridge monitors a pair of ramps into underground parking below CP2 to either side of pedestrian entrance. CP2 is nine bays to short sides to front and rear with thirteen bays to long sides, defined by a perimeter colonnade of massive cuboid piers (triangular at the four corners) holding up the second floor, with the first two floors recessed well behind this colonnade leaving a lofty covered stoa around the whole building with coffered ceiling. Glazing to ground and first floor divided by plain pilasters vertically and horizontally by aluminium panels much like CP1’s elevations. Colonnade rests on a substantial podium wall forming the inner side of massive sills or trenches with a battered outer edge. Six wedge like monopitches continuing the batter are the tops of stair towers into the underground levels, with two vertical rooflights facing outwards and their doors on the inner sides, these taking up the outer two bays of the short sides with one more at the middle bay of each long side, to the north of which is an open bay with no sill for pedestrian access to the stoa and side doors. Third floor with coffered under side projects out as overhangs along the four sides, not joined at the corners where the inner sides are blind. Fourth floor with aluminium cladding is set back and smaller blind fifth floor containing plant and services set much further back again, forming a figure of eight sheltering the sides of the two large square concertina glazed rooflights into the two atria which are sunken to fourth floor height. Four tall and narrow windows to each bay on each level reduced to three at the corners of the upper floor.  

In 1930s block, lobby with Soaneian domed ceiling contains memorials to staff of the Welsh Insurance Commission who fell in the First World War and staff of the Welsh Board of Health who fell in the Second World War. Lobby leads to staircase hall in polished limestone, stairs with Art-Deco clock and rails. Simple Classical details. Principal office with panelled doors, original light fittings etc. Ceiling over landing in front of this office decorated with pair of dragons with tails intertwined. At front southern end of CP2 is a double floor height entrance hall with a continuous mezzanine balcony on four sides and axially positioned grand staircase, the middle landing of which is occasionally used to deliver important speeches. Walls, columns and staircase in this hall are clad in travertine and ceiling is a deeply coffered square grid. Beyond the entrance hall the middle of the deep building is occupied by two back-to-back atria under rooflights, vertically stepped so that they widen with each floor in an inverted pyramid with its base on the first floor. The sides of the atria are lined with smaller offices and meeting rooms beyond which the levels are generally large open plans interrupted only by the grid of columns. Vehicle ramps lead down to the second of four below ground levels with the other levels reached by further central ramps. One parking level is interrupted by an underground mezzanine floor.  

Listed for the special architectural and historic interest of both the 1930s Art Deco influenced Board of Health and its strikingly monumental Brutalist 1970s extension. A key example of a twentieth century government office building in both phases. Group value with other listed buildings in Cathays Park.