page_title: Architecture of Wales
section_title: Baroque Revival architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Architecture of Wales / Earlier 20th-century architecture / Baroque Revival architecture
caption_attribution_description: Cymraeg: Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd, Parc Cathays, Caerdydd. Adeiladwyd 1913–27 i gynlluniau Arnold Dunbar Smith a Cecil Brewer.English: National Museum Cardiff, Cathays Park, Cardiff. Built 1913–27 to the designs of Arnold Dunbar Smith and Cecil Brewer.
context_page_description: Architecture of Wales is an overview of architecture in Wales from the Medieval period to the present day, excluding castles and fortifications, ecclesiastical architecture and industrial architecture. It covers the history of domestic, commercial, and administrative architecture.
context_section_description: Baroque Revival architecture is variously described as Neo-Baroque and Edwardian Baroque, and is paralleled in France by Beaux-Arts architecture. The style is also called Wrenaissance, acknowledging a debt to Sir Christopher Wren. In Wales the style starts appearing in the 1890s and was used for major public architecture, the newly founded universities and commercial buildings. It reflected the considerable wealth generated in this period, particularly from coal mining and also the growth of Welsh National Identity. The first buildings in the newly planned Cathays Park in Cardiff, described as the finest civic centre in the British Isles were the Cardiff Town Hall, later City Hall  and the Law Courts, based on plans drawn up in 1897 and built between 1901 and 1905 to designs by Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards. Newman sums up the buildings as swaggering Baroque  .. setting a new standard setting a new standard for the emergence of the Edwardian grand style for public buildings in Great Britain.  No Victorian architect had hitherto demonstrated such mastery of Continental Baroque, in this case the Baroque of South Germany and Austria, combined with the Neo-Baroque of Charles Garniers' Paris Opera. The setting is given opulence by the use of Portland Stone for the facades. The National Museum of Wales was added to this grouping in the modified American Neo-Barogue or Beaux-Arts style by the London architects Smith and Brewer and later extended by the Welsh architects T. Alwyn Lloyd and Alex Gordon.
  The Baroque Revival style was also used for a range of other public buildings,  banks and schools and universities. A refined example of this style was used by Alfred Cross for the Edward Davies Building at Aberystwyth University, was the first purpose-built chemical laboratory in a British university. It was opened in 1907 by Lord Asquith and remained a functioning Chemistry Department until 1988. It now serves as the School of Art Building.
  F Inigo Thomas also remodelled Ffynone House at Newchapel in Pembrokeshire in a neo-Baroque in 1902–1907 with massive rusticated quoining added to the facade. The house had originally been built by John Nash in 1792–1797.
  One of the earliest examples in Wales of the Baroque revival or Wrenaissance style to appear in Wales is the Barry Dock Offices built for David Davies  as the offices for the Barry Docks & Railway Company,  and was part of the scheme for the development of Barry Docks. It was constructed between 1897 and 1900 The architect was Arthur E. Bell. A very similar building, which appears to be copying the Barry Offices on a lesser scale to this is the Stiwt or Rhosllannerchrugog Miners' Institute, close to Wrexham,  which was built much later, between 1924 and 1926, by the local architects John Owen and F A Roberts. In Barry the Docks Office was followed in 1903–1908 by the town hall, which was built by the architects Charles E Hutchinson and E Harding Payne in red brick and lavish Bath Stone adjoined by a seven-bay public library with the centre three bays defined by giant Ionic pilasters. Equally ambitious, but on a smaller scale, is the red brick and limestone Town Hall by F A Roberts at Mold in Flintshire.
  Baroque revival was also a favoured style for bank architecture. An example is the former North and South Wales Bank, now HSBC in Aberystwyth. This was by Woodfall and Eccles of Liverpool and was built in 1908–1909. Three-bay frontage, with a recessed centre framed columns and topped by a broken curved pediment.
   An example of the use of the American Beaux-Arts style is the James Howell & Co. (now House of Fraser) department store  in St Mary's Street. This was the work of Sir Percy Thomas in 1928–1930. It makes use of Erectheum Ionic columns with a rounded corner and a memorable relief sculpture frieze designed by Thomas which symbolises the drapery trade.
caption: National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "VR310,D720", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2015:03:29 13:18:58", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "784", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15779", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:04:01 10:28:17", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:04:01 10:28:17", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1040241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6918863/1000000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "317/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "251/25", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "57", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}