Lynn Building

Queen's College, Belfast was chartered in 1845 as one of three constituent colleges of the Queen's University of Ireland. Initially having just 23 professors and 195 students, the college could be housed entirely within the main Lanyon Building. Initially the examinations hall (now known as the Great Hall) inside the Lanyon Building served additionally as the library. However the expansion of the institution meant that by the 1860s a discrete building was needed to house the college's growing library. The architect William Henry Lynn was duly commissioned to design the structure. The college was awarded a government grant of to construct the library, which was completed in 1868. The…

Unlike the university's Tudor Revival Lanyon Building, the Lynn Building is in the High Victorian Gothic style which was prominent during the mid-nineteenth century. It features numerous examples of the form of Neo-Gothic championed by the critic John Ruskin, including polychrome (the roof tiling and brickwork), varying materials (window tracery, bases and columns of different stone types set into polychromatic brickwork), and detailing (gargoyles). Anatomically, the structure is noted for its large number of rose windows, engaged buttresses (both setback and diagonal), and side-gables.