Building Name

Lee House Great Bridgewater Street Manchester

Date
1928 - 1931
Street
Great Bridgewater Street
District/Town
Manchester
County/Country
GMCA, England
Client
Tootal, Broadhurst, Lee Company
Work
New Build

 

Plans for a new warehouse for the Tootal, Broadhurst, Lee Company in Manchester, to have seventeen stories and said to be England’s tallest skyscraper, have come before the Corporation Plans Committee. Mr H S Fairhurst of Manchester is the architect. [Builder 10 February 1928 Page 248]

 

Design completed 1928. The first example in which Fairhurst finally abandoned the neo-classical vocabulary and sought a new style of architecture for highly commercial buildings.

 

Kenneth Lee, Chairman of Tootal Broadhurst Lee was a frequent visitor to America and had an American wife. Harry S Fairhurst visited the United States in 1926 and P S Fairhurst in 1928. The design shows distinct American influences. - the building has similarities with Saarinen’s design for the Chicago Tribune building while the window pattern is not dissimilar to the Reliance Building in Chicago.

 

When plans were approved in 1928, the building extended to seventeen storeys making it the tallest building in Europe at 217 feet. In the event, only the bottom portion of eight storeys was built. A steel frame with fireproof concrete floors. Brick walls and bronze windows in slightly projecting bays. Unfortunately, the original pattern of glazing bars has now been modified as part of refurbishment works on the building. According to John Archer Total Broadhurst & Lee employed Sellars as consultant - An uneasy relationship resulted and the design as built is not typical of Fairhurst's work. Built for "the better distribution of pocket handkerchiefs," according to Reilly

 

Perspective by Ted Adams. There is a drawing by Edgar Wood to a concept by J H Sellars which resembles the Adams perspective. See Partnership in Style by J H G Archer and Stuart Evans

 

Originally designed as an extension to the Tootal Building, it was intended to be the English equivalent of the American skyscraper. The building was originally designed to rise to seventeen storeys in three stages. It would then have been the tallest building in Europe at 217 feet. However, only the first stage was constructed. The stone cladding at the base of the building was supposed to have extended full height. After the economic crash of 1929 future plans were halted