City House

City House is a building over Leeds railway station that was built as British Railways House in 1962. The buildings were, like many other railway buildings in the UK, designed by the subsequently disgraced architect John Poulson. Poulson also designed the Leeds International Swimming Pool. Upon its construction it was famously lambasted by the poet John Betjeman, who said that the building blocked all the light out of City Square and was only a testament to money, having no architectural merit. He made similar criticism in 1968.

The building was bought by a property company, Kenmore, in 2006 with a view to regenerating what it described as a "tired and dilapidated" building. Kenmore received planning permission in 2008 to extend the building at the back (on the south side) and re-clad it in glazed curtain walling. The scheme was due to be completed in 2009. However Kenmore went into liquidation in 2009 before the scheme had started. A December 2011 photo shows little change from the 2008 image (right).