Other UK buildings of interest

The Midland Hotel, Manchester was designed by Charles Trubshaw, and construction began here in 1900.  This 6 storey, fully steel framed building used £200,000 worth of steelwork.  A contemporary report noted the advantage of steel framing that persists today:

"the speedy erection has resulted more from foresight, close direction…The contractors know what they want and carry out their work in a systematic way."

The first fully steel framed building in Scotland appears to be in Edinburgh and not Glasgow as originally thought.  It is The Scotsman Building designed in 1899 by Dunn and Findlay, and completed in 1902, incorporating 6 floors plus two basements, and heavy continuous stanchions on the outside wall.

The first full steel frames in Glasgow do not appear to arrive until after 1905 (R.W. Forsyth's, now Burtons, built in 1906)

Partial steel frames were designed by both J.J. Burnet and John A. Campbell:

·       Atlantic Chambers, designed in 1898 by Burnet, completed in 1900

·       Dundas House, Buchanan Street by Campbell, again designed in 1898

In Dublin the Guinness Brewey, Market Street (1904) predates the Ritz Hotel and still exists today in its original form.

It is a fully framed multistorey steel structure, probably engineered by Tuit of Arrols.  It had 8 floors with a total height of 116 ft. and measured 165 x 146 ft. in plan.  Steel box columns, plate girders and joists were used for the structure. Girder to column connections were riveted over the full depth of the girder.  Steel wind bracing was provided in the corner bays

It is clear that there are a number of notable examples of UK steel framing which predate the more famous examples usually quoted of:

·         Savoy Hotel Extension (1903-4)

·         Ritz Hotel (1906)

·        Harrods Phase 1 (1901)

(Dates in brackets are dates of construction)