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Summary

Description

John Alexander Ogg Allan, 1901. Bold 3-storey, multi-bay Renaissance style former academy building now part of Academy Shopping Centre with 4-storey 3-bay corner tower with leaded dome occupying prominent near-triangular site. Near-symmetrical treatment to principal N and W elevations terminating in advanced gable bays. Grey granite ashlar; rock-faced base course and ground floor; moulded string course between ground and 1st floors. Strong horizontal styling with broken cill courses and raised bays. Round-arched Venetian windows to top storey with Roman-Doric columned mullions.

NW corner tower: double-leaf timber doorway with open pediment above. Horizontal banding throughout corner elevation and projecting single bays flanking tower. 2nd storey openings pedimented; circular key-stoned windows above. Dentiled cornice to leaded dome with louvred lantern and finial.

Advanced terminating bays to N and W elevations with similar treatment at 1st and 2nd floors; gable with round-arched panel at apex.

Grey slate, broad gable end stacks, ashlar skews and skewputts, clay cans.

INTERIOR: Comprehensively altered to form Academy Shopping Centre complex.

Statement of Special Interest

This strongly detailed building in the Rennaissance style was built in 1901 for the Aberdeen Central School. The striking triangular plan and use of horizontal coursing anchors the building to its prominent corner site, situated opposite the Art Gallery. The building features a prominent landmark dome and wealth of Classical features. The building's relatively late date accounts for the unusually decorative scheme making use of the advances in granite cutting techniques available at that time. The architect, John Alexander Ogg Allan, attended Robert Gordon's College and Gray's School of Art on the opposite side of the road, 1883-87. His RIBA Journal obituary reads, 'Mr Allan held a distinguished place among architects in Scotland and was regarded in the north, throughout the first half of the present century, as the leading authority in the field of educational building and architecture. The school moved out to form Hazelhead Academy on Groats Road in 1970.

References

Bibliography

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