Lion Chambers View from North West, also showing Endsleigh and Roberta Buchan

Description Lion Chambers View from North West, also showing Endsleigh and Roberta Buchan

Date 13/8/1992

Catalogue Number B 74409 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 710131

Scope and Content Lion Chambers from the north-east, Nos 170-2 Hope Street, Glasgow The Lion Chambers were built 1904-7 to designs by architects James Salmon (1873-1924) and John Gaff Gillespie (1870-1926). This eight-storeyed building was only the second reinforced concrete building to be constructed in Glasgow, built by the Yorkshire Hennebique Contracting Company Ltd. This building also features an early electric passenger lift. These were invented by the American Elisha Otis, and first installed in a New York store in 1856. The first electric elevators were introduced in the 1880s by Werner von Siemens. This shows the Lion Chambers towering above its neighbours on Hope Street. The façade features an asymmetrical arrangement of windows of various forms and a corner tower with a domed roof. Rows of large bay windows face onto the side street to admit as much light as possible to the building. This building was one of the earliest in Glasgow to be built using concrete. The system used was that of the French pioneer of reinforced concrete architecture, François Hennebique (1843-1924). The small site (just 10.9m x14m) was imaginatively used by building a tall structure, a design made possible by this new method of construction. This building has been selected as one of Scotland's key 20th-century Modern architectural monuments. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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