Buildings and Architecture of Bristol - 20th Century

20th Century

In the early part of the 20th century further expansion took place in residential districts increasingly distant from the city centre. Bristol Hippodrome was designed by Frank Matcham, and opened on 16 December 1912.

The Wills Memorial Building was commissioned in 1912 by George Alfred Wills and Henry Herbert Wills, the magnates of the Bristol tobacco company W. D. & H. O. Wills, in honour of their father, Henry Overton Wills III, benefactor and first Chancellor of the University of Bristol. Sir George Oatley was chosen as architect and told to "build to last". He produced a design in the Perpendicular Gothic style, to evoke the famous university buildings of Oxford and Cambridge. The university also took over several existing houses such as Royal Fort, Victoria Rooms, Clifton Hill House, Goldney Hall, Wills Hall and buildings on Berkeley Square, Park Street and the surrounding areas. Oatley was also involved in the design or restoration of other buildings in Bristol in the early part of the 20th century, including the restoration of John Wesley's original Methodist chapel, the New Room.

The 1930s saw the construction of the Employment Exchange and the planning of the new Council House, although this was not completed until 1956. As a centre of aircraft manufacturing, Bristol was a target for bombing during the Bristol Blitz of World War II. Bristol's city centre suffered severe damage, especially in November and December 1940, when the Broadmead area was flattened, and Hitler claimed to have destroyed the city. The original central area, near the bridge and castle, is now a park featuring two bombed-out churches and fragments of the castle. A third bombed church has been given a new lease of life as the St Nicholas' Church Museum. Slightly to the north, the Broadmead shopping centre was built over bomb-damaged areas. Clifton Cathedral, to the north of the city centre, was built during the early 1970s.

Like much of British post-war development, the regeneration of Bristol city centre was characterised by large cheap tower blocks such as Castlemead, brutalist architecture, and road expansion. Since the 1990s this trend has been reversing, with the closure of main roads and the redevelopment of the Broadmead shopping centre. In 2006, two of the city centre's tallest post-war blocks were demolished. The transfer of the docks to Avonmouth, 7 miles (11 km) downstream from the city centre, relieved congestion in the centre of Bristol and allowed substantial redevelopment of the old central dock area (the Floating Harbour). The continued existence of the central docks was for some time in jeopardy, as they were seen to be remnants of a derelict industry instead of an asset to be developed for public use.

In the 1990s, a harbourside concert hall designed by architects Behnisch & Partners was planned, but an Arts Council decision cut the funding and the project has not been revived. This has left At-Bristol, which mixes art, science and nature, with its all-reflective planetarium, as the centrepiece of the Harbourside development.