HEATH TOWN BATHS AND LIBRARY

page 3


While the Borough Engineer had been a driving force, the newspaper account suggests that the chief architect for the Heath Town building was one of his staff, Wallace Wood (for the Department's history, see Wolverhampton Borough Council 1948, 74-8).

The main facade.  Note the symmetry, geometrical plainness and simplicity.
The style of his design, found in a number of other civic buildings of the period, may be described as a restrained "municipal modernism".

Its chief external mark is the symmetry, and geometrical plainness and simplicity, characterising the main facade, set off by the equally plain and geometrical decoration of roundels and "Egyptian diadems", the whole brought out by the combination of stone-effect material with the basic brickwork.

Internally, the "modernism" of the design is less in architectural form than in the use of high-quality materials, which are reminiscent of good suburban housing of the period: glass leading - rectangular for exterior windows, and of striking "Gothic arch" form for interior ones; coloured glass in the main door and (originally) the end window of the main pool; brass door furniture and attractive ceramic tiling.
The main facade.  Note the geometrical decoration of roundels and "Egyptian diadems".
An interior view.

Note the gothic form of the leading, and the use of tinted, obscured glass.

Another interior view showing the gothic form of the leading, and the use of tinted, obscured glass.
An example of the attractive tiling.

 
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