Oriel Chambers

Coordinates: 53°24′23″N 2°59′36″W / 53.4065°N 2.9932°W / 53.4065; -2.9932

Oriel Chambers was one of the world's first buildings (along with the 1849 Jayne Building in Philadelphia) featuring a metal framed glass curtain wall. Designed by architect Peter Ellis and built in 1864, it is located on Water Street near the town hall in Liverpool, England. Due to its outstanding importance, it has been grade I listed.

History

Ellis won the commission for Oriel Chambers by competition and completed it in 1864 as evidenced by the building's inscription A.D. 1864 in the gable. It comprises 43,000 sq ft (4,000 m²) of floor space set over five storeys. Ellis manages to maximise the influx of light by employing a grid of oriel windows which became the building's defining feature.

Initially, it was not well received. The Builder of 16 June 1866 savaged it:

But the potential of Ellis' design was not lost on all of his contemporaries. John Wellborn Root studied in Liverpool as a teenaged boy, being sent there by his father to be safe from the American Civil War following the Atlanta Campaign (1864). In all likelihood, he studied the then brand new Oriel Chambers and put the lessons learnt to good use when he developed into an important architect of the Chicago School of Architecture, exporting Ellis' ideas across the Atlantic. Long rows of bay windows (of which oriels are a special type) characterise some of Burnham and Root's 1880s American skyscrapers.

Oriel Chambers (Kingston upon Hull)

Oriel Chambers is a Grade II listed building which, since 2006, has housed the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation. It is located in the city of Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

History

Background to the building

Built in 1879 to the designs of William Botterill and Son. It is a brick building with tile and terracotta detail, with dormers and shaped gables. It takes its name from the oriel window on the first floor, the window that stands proud of the facade.

The site of Oriel Chambers lies within a much older tenement on the east side of the High Street, in the heart of the historic core of the Old Town of Hull. This particular plot of land was held by Robert de Dripole in 1293. In 1339 the property was split into two, and a deed of that year records a Basement in which a widow lived, with a 9 feet wide passageway or "free entry" to the west of the said Basement. In the 1347 rental, a tenement was held by John Lambert for 7s per year. A messuage is recorded here in 1374. By 1448 this holding had become one messuage and three tenements, whilst at the Lowgate (Marketgate) end of the property, a chamber and a hospice were erected to serve as a hospital.