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Crown Buildings, Cathays Park

Cathays ParkGovernment buildings in WalesGrade II listed buildings in CardiffNeoclassical architecture in WalesPolitics of Cardiff
Stripped Classical architectureTerrorist incidents in Cardiff
Cardiff 13741 Crown Buildings 01
Cardiff 13741 Crown Buildings 01

The Crown Buildings (Welsh: Adeiladau y Goron), which are also known as the Cathays Park Buildings, are the Welsh Government's main offices in Cardiff, Wales. The buildings were formerly used by the Welsh Office and are situated in Cathays Park. The complex consists of two buildings, Cathays Park 1 (a Grade II-listed building) and Cathays Park 2, joined by two skybridges. In 1914 foundations were laid for an imposing neoclassical building on this site housing Welsh Government Offices, to a design by R. J. Allison, architect to the Office of Works. Work soon stopped and did not resume for twenty years. In 1934–8, the block now known as Cathays Park 1 (a.k.a. CP1 or old Crown Building) was built by P. E. Hanton, as offices for the Welsh Board of Health. It is a three-storey building in the Stripped Classical style, with 3,599 m2 (38,740 sq ft) of floorspace. It also has an attic and a basement.Cathays Park 2 (a.k.a. CP2 or new Crown Building) is a five-storey office building with 34,305 m2 (369,260 sq ft) of floorspace, including an underground car park and a central atrium housing a cafe for the office staff. The Encyclopaedia of Wales describes CP2, completed in 1979, as conveying an impression of "bureaucracy under siege". The historian John Davies, however, regarded the complex as being "splendid".The sky bridge between Cathays Park 1 and 2 'the link' has been the subject of some discussion amongst staff based in the building. People have reported an eerie feeling, a general sense of something "unworldly" with people catching fleeting glimpses out of the corner of their eye which had led to rumours of the area being haunted.In 1968, Cathays Park 1 was damaged by a bomb explosion, the second in the area in under 12 months following a previous attack on the nearby Temple of Peace.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Crown Buildings, Cathays Park (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Crown Buildings, Cathays Park
Museum Avenue, Cardiff Civic Centre

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N 51.48832 ° E -3.18262 °
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Welsh Government

Museum Avenue
CF10 3NQ Cardiff, Civic Centre
Wales, United Kingdom
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Cardiff 13741 Crown Buildings 01
Cardiff 13741 Crown Buildings 01
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Redwood Building
Redwood Building

The Redwood Building is a Cardiff University building, in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales. The building was opened in 1961 by the Welsh College of Advanced Technology, which in 1968 became the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST). In 1988 UWIST merged into the University of Wales College Cardiff, which became Cardiff University in 1999. The building was designed by the Sir Percy Thomas & Son and is a rectangular three-story block in the modernist style. The main entrance is at the extreme left end of the west façade, above which is a large relief sculpture by Edward Bainbridge Copnall, showing an elderly toga-clad man with his foot on a globe, reaching out protectively over a scientist and a nurse.In 1979 the building was named after the Redwood family of Orchard House, Boverton, near Llantwit Major, namely the pharmacist Theophilus Redwood, his son Sir Boverton Redwood as well as Theophilus's medical brother Lewis Redwood and his son Thomas Redwood (after whom the former Redwood Hospital of Rhymney was named). Theophilus Redwood was a founding father of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain among connections with the Chemical Society and as founder president of the Society of Public Analysts, while his son Sir Boverton Redwood was a distinguished petroleum chemist – sometime president of the Society of Chemical Industry. [The 1979 naming by UWIST Council followed a suggestion by Dr J D R Thomas in a letter to UWIST Secretary and Registrar on 18 December 1978 that the building be named "Redwood Building" coupled with the names of Theophilus Redwood and of his son Sir Thomas Boverton Redwood Bart. to whom were later added the other family names of Lewis and Thomas Redwood (mentioned in the first two paragraphs of 'External links' - "Theophilus Redwood and the Redwood Building"). Dr J D R Thomas of UWIST Chemistry Department conducted most of his research in the Redwood Building - including that for his 1972 DSc degree, the first for a member of UWIST.]