Owen Owen Building

Owen Owen was a chain of department stores based in Liverpool that opened its first store in Coventry in 1937 on the corner of Trinity Street and The Burges. The original Owen Owen building remained open until it was struck by an incendiary bomb in the Coventry Blitz on 14 November 1940. This left it scorched and roofless like the nearby cathedral, so the company moved to temporary premises in Trinity Street and Hales Street. It was announced in 1942 that the original building was to be demolished as it was damaged beyond repair. The construction of Owen Owen's new store at the end of Broadgate began in 1951 along with other reconstruction projects in the city centre. The building was…

The architectural theme around which most buildings in Coventry's post-war shopping precinct were based was set in 1948 by Donald Gibson's design for Broadgate House. It is a brick-clad building with regularly spaced windows edged with white stone, and an arcade at street level supported by stone-clad columns. The brick chosen is a similar colour to the local red-grey sandstone, allowing the new buildings to sit less jarringly next to the old. Hotel Leofric and the buildings in the Upper Precinct all follow this general pattern with small variations. The Owen Owen Building departed from this theme, its concrete mushroom column construction allowing the creation of a five storey glazed…