North Concourse Leeds City Station, 1998

This project was designed and delivered by Simon and Jonathan whilst Directors of careyjones architects and was undertaken for Railtrack through an agreement with developer Teesland. It comprised the refurbishment of the Listed Art Deco Concourse, together with new build retail units and parking facilities.

The North Concourse was originally completed in 1939 and linked the LNER and LMS stations together providing access to the adjacent platforms and also the Queens Hotel. The architectural style was uncompromisingly Art Deco with an elaborate coffered fibrous plaster ceiling and wall panels. Bronze framed display cases lined the Queens Hotel side of the concourse effectively screening the back of house hotel facilities whilst on the opposite side of the concourse similar detailing framed the openings for passengers to walk through to the platforms.

The construction of the South Concourse in the early 1960's coincided with the removal of the North Concourse platforms which resulted in a refocusing of passenger circulation. As such the North Concourse became redundant with regard to it's original function, the entrance to City Square was blocked off and the large covered space became used as a car park for executive travellers. Given its relatively short life before decommissioning little maintenance work was carried out on the North Concourse leaving the vast majority of the Art Deco features completely original and intact.

In the early 1990's the aspiration to re-open the North Concourse and make it once again a major entrance to the station was driven by changes to the city centre road network, making the South Concourse entrance inaccessible to private cars. This issue was resolved by removing the car-parking from within the concourse, re-opening the entrance to City Square and creating a new passenger drop-off entrance and short stay car-park.

With a potential daily footfall of 50,000 rail users passing through the North Concourse a major retail opportunity was created. In response to this an extension to the North Concourse was created to house new retail units with the shop fronts taking their design language from the bronze framed display cases. Shop signage above the units was agreed in the original 1930's Art Deco typeface with specific company branding restricted to small projecting signs.

Where possible the original specialist contractors who had worked on this building in the 1930's were invited back to undertake the refurbishment works. This included such organisations as Luxcrete who supplied the glass roof-lights and Drawn Metal who produced the bronze decorative cases and frames. Other features such as the art deco pendant lights had to be carefully removed from site dismantled and rebuilt in order to meet modern electrical and safety standards, whilst also maintaining an identical outward appearance.

The success of this painstaking level of restoration work has been underlined by the various awards that have been achieved over the years including a Commendation from the Leeds Award for Architecture (Altered Buildings) as well as the National Railway Heritage Awards, London Underground Award in 1999.