Sunderland Civic Centre was a municipal building in the Burdon Road in Sunderland,

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newc ...

, England. It was the headquarters of Sunderland City Council until November 2021.

History

After Sunderland became a

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...

in 1835, civic leaders initially held their meetings in the Exchange Building on High Street East which had served as the local market hall as well as the courthouse since it was completed in 1814. Following the expansion of the borough council's responsibilities in the latter half of the 19th century, civic leaders decided to procure a purpose-built town hall in Fawcett Street. The town hall was designed by

Brightwen Binyon Brightwen Binyon, FRIBA, (30 May 1846 – 21 September 1905) was a British architect. Life He was born at Headley Grange, Victoria Park, Manchester, the son of Edward Binyon (1791–1855), a sugar refiner and tea dealer, and his wife Jane née ...

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

, was built by John and Thomas Tillman at a cost of around £50,000 and was officially opened by the mayor, Councillor Robert Shadforth, on 6 November 1890. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

the town hall was also deemed unsuitable and civic leaders decided to procure a new civic centre: the site they selected had previously been occupied by a residential area known as West Park. Construction of the civic centre started in January 1968. It was designed by Spence Bonnington & Collins in the

Modern style The Modern Style is a style of architecture, art, and design that first emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1880s. It is the first Art Nouveau style worldwide, and it represents the evolution of the Arts and Crafts movement which was native ...

, built at a cost of £3.4 million and was officially opened by Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon on 5 November 1970. The design for the new low-rise building, which made extensive use of red brick, involved two connected

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A '' regular hexagon'' has ...

s arranged on a north–south axis: there were continuous rows of glazing with brickwork above and below on each of the floors throughout the complex. The civic suite, which contained the council, jutted out of the main building to the south west. The windows in the building had metal curtains which were inspired by those in

the Four Seasons Restaurant The Four Seasons Restaurant (known colloquially as the Four Seasons) was a New American cuisine restaurant in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City from 1959 to 2019. The Four Seasons operated within the Seagram Building at 99 Ea ...

in New York which rippled from the air released from concealed ventilation ducts. The design received a gold award from the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...

as well as a

Civic Trust Award The Civic Trust Awards scheme was established in 1959 to recognise outstanding architecture, planning and design in the built environment. As the longest standing built environment awards scheme in Europe, since 1959, more than 7000 projects have ...

. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of Sunderland Borough Council and became the local seat of government of the enlarged Sunderland Metropolitan District Council in 1974. After Sunderland received city status in 1992, Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the civic centre and unveiled the city's new

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

on 18 May 1993. A large stained glass window, designed by Dan Savage to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the UK miners' strike, was installed above the entrance to the council chamber and unveiled by the general secretary of the

Durham Miners' Association The Durham Miners' Association (DMA) was a trade union in the United Kingdom. History The union was founded in 1869 and its membership quickly rose to 4,000, but within a year had fallen back to 2,000. In December 1870, William Crawford becam ...

, David Hopper, on 5 March 2010. The local authority said the civic centre was too big and extensive to maintain: it proposed demolition of the civic centre and re-use of the site for housing. Consequently, in October 2019 construction work commenced on a new City Hall on the former

Vaux Breweries Vaux Brewery was a major brewer and hotel owner based in Sunderland, England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange. It was taken over by Whitbread in 2000. History The company was founded in 1806 by Cuthbert Vaux (1779–1850), p ...

site. In January 2021 ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' listed the Civic Centre as one of Britain's Brutalist buildings most at risk of demolition and development. It was included in ''Brutal North: Post-War Modernist Architecture in the North of England'', Simon Phipps's photographic study of Brutalist architecture.

Notes

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1970 City and town halls in Tyne and Wear Buildings and structures in the City of Sunderland Brutalist architecture in England