- 01 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Millennium Bridge arch pivot and the Co-op Building
This set of photographs concentrates on some of the buildings on the Newcastle Quayside set between the curved arch of the 1928 Tyne Bridge and the double curves of the 2000 Gateshead Millennium Bridge. Once a busy maritime area with cranes, storage sheds and moored merchant ships it’s now a mix of offices, leisure spaces and apartments. Older buildings like this one have been restored and repurposed whilst others date from redevelopments in the final years of the last century and the first of the new.
- 02 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Co-operative building framed by the Millennium Bridge
I can remember the days when the 1900 Co-operative building still served its original warehouse purpose. I also recall it being opened briefly to the public after an internal clearance for conversion to storing people rather than goods. The solidity and weight of its pioneering reinforced construction were impressive: the sombre green I remember of at least part of its interior must have been practical rather than aesthetic. Visiting the public rooms now with an enquiring eye might conjure their original function. The cables linking the bridge arch to its deck cut across the façade
- 03 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Millennium Bridge pivot and railings
The Gateshead Millennium Bridge stands open with the arcs of its supporting span and pedestrian deck resting in equilibrium. The south bank deck pivot housing is in the foreground. The hydraulic rams that power the opening and closing rotations lie below to work with their twin units on the north shore.
- 04 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Co-operative Building
Originally flat roofed, the Co-operative Society warehouse building was completed in 1900 to designs by Louis Mouchel. The attic floor and vaulted arch roof were added in 1908-09. To reduce fire risks it’s constructed in concrete reinforced with mild steel bars, a method developed in France by Francois Hennebique. The extensive warehouse fires in Gateshead and Newcastle in 1854 and the 1866 destruction of flour mill and granary buildings below the High Level Bridge were local events. Converted and restored in 1994 it now houses the Malmaison Hotel behind an unaltered exterior.
- 05 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Co-operative Building upward perspective
Sunlight on the off-white façade created a strong contrast with the clear blue of the sky. In its industrial days a long narrow warehouse occupied the space between it and the edge of the quay where the Pitcher and Piano pub and Millennium Bridge stand.. A railway aligned on a tight curve through two tunnels and a cutting connected with the main east coast railway using two electric locomotives. One is preserved in Locomotion, the National Railway Museum at Shildon.
- 06 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Sandgate Car Park lift tower façade
A large car park was included in the redevelopment of the quayside and set behind the new buildings at this point. This lift tower is one of two on the elongated façade of its narrow structure.
- 07 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | 100 The Quayside extension
NEPIA House dates from the 1990s as one of the early buildings in the quayside redevelopment plan. The original brick and stone design was reworked from 2011 to include this steel and glass extension and a full-length clerestory floor designed by Ryder Architects. A glimpse of The Tyne, a restored nineteenth century public house, shows beyond. A tall adjacent brick warehouse has been restored and converted into apartments and now accompanied by a new block in similar brick style.
- 08 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | 100 The Quayside detail, Bridge arch and the Baltic
This image includes a glimpse of the Millennium Bridge’s supporting arch and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art on the south shore.
- 09 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | 100 The Quayside extension steel and glass
The strongly linear design elements of the new wing appealed. Its top floor extends the full length of the original building: a photograph of much of the whole design appears as IMAGE 14 in the NEWCASTLE ARCHITECTURE 1 gallery.
- 10 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | 100 The Quayside, glass, steel, stone and brick
This image shows the junction between the later extension and the original red brick and off-white stone of the original building.
- 11 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | 100 the Quayside Building perspective
This angled perspective includes the additional metal and glass roof extension installed in the 2011 redesign of the building.
- 12 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Quayside House
The parade of buildings east from the Law Courts offers a great variety of styles. Quayside House seems to echo the squared geometry of the adjacent Co-operative Society building. Its buff brick and stone colours and textures contrast with the painted concrete of the latter. The metal and glass attic structure suggests a parallel with that of the Co-operative Building added some nine years after its completion in 1900.
- 13 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Law Courts portico
The Law Courts building was completed in 1990 to the designs of architects Napper Collerton (now Napper Architects). Constructed in red brick, red Scottish sandstone, glass and sheet lead its long façade is a strong presence on the quayside. This view focuses on the portico walk and steps leading to the main entrance.
- 14 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Law Courts façade fragment
This single sandstone clad bay is set between a glazed central tower and a long stretch of deep window glass. A colour perspective of the full façade is IMAGE 13 in the NEWCASTLE ARCHITECTURE 1 gallery.
- 15 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Law Courts, façade detail
Symmetry, strong contrasts in forms, materials and lighting appealed in this small fragment from the façade.
- 16 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | The Sandgate House curving west façade
Designed by Ryder Architects the curvaceous brown brick western façade of Sandgate House is divided from their matching Keel Row House by the Sandgate roadway set between the two turrets.
- 17 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Sandgate House curving façade
Details framed from both buildings.
- 18 NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE ARCHITECTURE | Sandgate House river frontage
The narrow riverside façade is in marked contrast to the sweeping curves to the west. The 1996 ‘River God’ bronze by Andre Wallace is partnered by his ‘Siren’ piece set in the garden walkway of Sandyford Steps to the left of the building.