Peter Ellis (architect)

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Peter Ellis is a virtually unknown 19th century Liverpool architect.

He designed the revolutionary Oriel Chambers in 1864 at the corner of Water Street and Covent Garden in Liverpool. Said by some to be the finest building in Liverpool and one of the most influential buildings of its age. The result of a competition, stylistically and structurally, it is prophetic of the Modern Movement. Rather than echoing the small window patterns of the Renaissance so much copied in buildings of this age, projecting oriel windows flood the offices with light. Of as much significance is the courtyard behind whose simplified elevations are years ahead of their time – a time when the building provoked a great deal of adverse comment, being described as 'a great abortion' and 'an agglomeration of great glass bubbles'. Perhaps as a result of comments such as these, Ellis's only other commission was 16 Cook Street, Liverpool in 1866. Today its honesty, elegance and revolutionary impact are appreciated.

Ellis' buildings influenced the later work of the US architect John Wellborn Root, who lived in Liverpool for a period.

[edit] External links

• http://www.artehistoria.com/tienda/banco/cuadros/12033.htm
• http://www.sjsfiles.btinternet.co.uk/flm030636.htm
• http://www.ar.utexas.edu/courses/glossary/building/oriel.html