Aston Webb Building by Sir Aston Webb - The University of Birmingham- Edgbaston, Birmingham, U.K. - Satellite Imagery Oddities on Waymarking.com

Sir Aston Web designed the eponymous building at the University of Birmingham’s Edgbaston campus.

The Aston Webb building was the first building at the Edgbaston campus. It forms a semicircle to the south of the Chancellor’s Court with its clock tower ‘Old Joe’, named for the university’s first Chancellor, Joseph Chamberlain.

Sir Aston Webb received the inaugural American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1907. The AIA Gold Medal is awarded by the Board of Directors in recognition of an architect who has produced an extensive body of work which has shaped the theory and practice of architecture. He had previously received the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1905.

The Aston Webb Building at The University of Birmingham was built between 1900 and 1912 to the designs of Aston Webb in the Byzantine style. The Building includes the university’s 'Great Hall' and was the first phase in the university's first Chancellor's vision for all Departments to be brought together on the 'greenfield' site in Edgbaston on land generously donated by the Calthorpe family.

Joseph Chamberlain, the university's first chancellor, was very much the driving force to the building and design of the Aston Webb Building. The plans were changed several times over the period from when the university received its Royal Charter in 1900 and the opening of the Edgbaston Campus in 1909. Chamberlain’s vision was only finally realised in the early 1960’s.

The university’s Edgbaston Campus was opened by His Majesty King Edward VII accompanied by Queen Alexandra on July 7 1909.

The building forms a grand semi-circle at the heart of the university and is a Listed Grade-II Building.

'At the University of Birmingham (1900-1912), the whole of the original scheme, in the Byzantine style, was the product of the Webb-Bell partnership. This consisted of a curved building with five radial blocks. The central building of Chancellor's Court containing the Great Hall is named after Aston Webb. The main feature is a large dome that sits atop the entrance loggia. The two radial blocks to each side were to be teaching blocks for various engineering disciplines; but the easternmost was not built until the Bramall Music Building was added roughly a century later. The scheme also included the straight run of buildings to the north completing the 'D' shape. Originally these were the physics and chemistry departments, and the Harding Memorial Library. The scheme was set off by the free-standing clock tower ("Old Joe") over 100 metres high and the tallest structure in Birmingham until 1966.' (visit link)

Sir Aston Webb GCVO CB RA FRIBA (22 May 1849 – 21 August 1930)
'An English architect who designed the principal facade of Buckingham Palace and the main building of the Victoria and Albert Museum, among other major works around England, many of them in partnership with Ingress Bell. He was President of the Royal Academy from 1919 to 1924, and the founding Chairman of the London Society.'
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Aston Webb received The Royal Institute of British Architects’ Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1905 and was the first recipient of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1907.

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Date Logged Log   01/03/2022 Poole/Freeman visited it