April 2026

The Presgrave Building, #littlecollinsstreet, #MarcusBarlow, 1935/7, a bit of fine Streamlined Moderne (a subset of Art Deco) doing a good job of standing out in this narrow street, with a curved banded corner on #howeyplace and a bit of a tower motif. Though the horizontal speedlines turn the corner then abruptly stop.

Marcus Barlow was the preferred architect for the ‘howey estate’ which had owned a third of this city block since, well, the beginning, after he did the stand-out #ManchesterUnity round the corner in 1930-32, and followed them with the #CenturyBuilding two doors up from here in 1940.

Presgrave was originally four floors, completed Dec 1935, then another floor including a squash court with viewing gallery and change rooms for the existing top floor tenant Frank Finlay in 1937. Possibly the taller bit was the court. It was converted to a boutique hotel in 2000, which got 3 extra setback floors in 2020, not great but ok. Now called The Howey. Pics 6,7,8 are from before.

4 November 2019

The #HotelCauseway in #LittleCollinsStreet, in the #PresgraveBuilding, a great little #ArtDeco office block built 1938 by #MarcusBarlow, is getting an extension – a bit of a black box, but set well back such I don’t think you’ll see it from the street, which is nice. Designed by @chandlerarchitecture. And thanks to @jessiecfowler for the first photo and @tristan_davies for the second.

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