LONDON, ENGLAND.-Culture Minister David Lammy has announced the listing at Grade II of a highly unusual and structurally innovative 1970’s market building and an inter-war Library and Art Gallery in Huddersfield.

The Queensgate Market Hall was opened in 1970 and features a stunning roof structure based on 21 asymmetric paraboloid shells designed to allow maximum light into the market. From the outside, roof sections of differing heights cantilever or appear to fly above the structure. The external east wall of the building is further enhanced by the incorporation of abstract art in relief created by a distinctive émigré sculptor.

Begun in 1937 and opened in 1940, the Library and Art Gallery was built in the ‘stripped classical style’ of the period, incorporating many of the elements of classical architecture stripped down to their most basic form and enlivened with bold detail.

Culture Minister David Lammy said: “Huddersfield's Queensgate Market is the best surviving example of a retail market from the 1960s and 1970s. It is an imaginative structure that combines innovative technology of its time to produce a dramatic space full of natural light with the striking focal point of the roof.

“The Huddersfield's library and art gallery is a very fine building incorporating many elements of classical architecture but interpreted in a modernist way. It has retained the original balance of both classical and modernist influences externally, and a wealth of original features internally.”

The preliminary decision to list the structures was taken on the advice of English Heritage and CABE (in the case of Queensgate Market) and supported by the result of the public consultation. When assessing a building for listing, the only factor which our statutory advisers and the Secretary of State can take into account is whether it possesses special architectural or historic interest. The structure’s state of repair (unless it has harmed the architectural or historic interest), or any planning proposals are not relevant to the assessment of a building's qualification for listing.