The site for a civic centre competition at Lincoln, advertised by the City Council in the AJ for December 15. [There is no apparent sign of it against that date]. On the left (foreground) is the new road to the centre of the town, over the main railway. The site itself is the open area, now used mainly for car parking, beyond the roundabout. Competitors are asked to design for a civic centre and a number of shops for the whole island site, and to retain Sincil Street, on the far side, as a pedestrian shopping area. Another admirable feature of this competition for buildings and townscape is the fixed maximum cost – something neglected in many other civic competitions. The cost is not to exceed £975,000, excluding site clearance and professional fees and including external works. Three premiums of £4,000, £2,000 and £1,000 will be paid for the three best designs, the assessors reserving the right to combine and redivide the second and third prizes according to the number of designs of outstanding merit. Assessors: Geoffrey Jellicoe, FRIBA, Sir Leslie Martin, FRIBA, and J. M. Richards, ARIBA. Closing date July 7, 1961. Last day for questions, January 31. Applications to the Town Clerk, Saltergate, Lincoln, with a deposit of 2 guineas. [Aerial photograph featured.]
Architects' Journal, 29th December, 1960, p.921
LINCOLN CIVIC CENTRE WINNING DESIGN
Above, perspective sketch of Eldred Evans’s and Denis Gailey’s prize-winning design for the Lincoln Civic Centre Competition, showing the central concourse (with Lincoln’s famous hill behind) with mayoral chambers on the left and administrative offices on the right. The high-level view on the right shows the layout of the scheme, which set competitors a complex problem to which, according to the assessors’ report, the winners have offered “a masterly solution, capable of producing a group of buildings which would endow the city of Lincoln with a civic centre of unusual appropriateness and distinction.” The assessors were G. A. Jellicoe, Sir Leslie Martin and J. M. Richards, and their report – a full summary of which will accompany the illustration of the prize winners in next week’s AJ – plumps for the winning design as being quite outstanding with an enthusiasm which is as heartening as it is unusual.
As announced in last week’s AJ, the first prize of £4,000 has been awarded to Eldred Evans, and Denis Gailey and the assessors, Geoffrey Jellicoe, Sir Leslie Martin and J. M. Richards, have divided the remainder of the prize money equally between three entries, which are awarded £1,000 each. These were submitted by Gollins, Melvin, Ward & Partners; Andrew Renton, Peter Howards, John Kennett and Gerald Levin; and James Bourne, David Button, Stephen Osgood (of Burton, Osgood, Bourne and Button) in association with H. Werner Rosenthal. Out of a total of seventy-six entries, the assessors also commended the three designs submitted by A. M. Thompson, Birkin Haward, and a group consisting of J. Attenborough, J. Roberts, W. Chalk, D. Crompton, R. Herron, T. Kennedy, A. Teague and A. Waterhouse.
Architects' Journal, 27th September 1961, p.434, pp. 494-506
