The Pierhead building should be the first

William Frame's attention to detail on the Pierhead Building is matched elsewhere in the Bay

AFTER years of providing Cardiff Bay with it’s most attractive exterior, the world was finally allowed to glimpse the quiet halls and nooks of the Pierhead Building this week when it was opened on Dydd Dewi Sant following a lengthy restoration.

Overnight, the Pierhead has been transformed into a potential major pull for the Bay. In addition to its extremely well-preserved French-Gothic Renaissance interior (think how beautiful the outside is and it’s much the same indoors, with further terracotta detail, inlaid floors and carved columns), the National Assembly renovation is a masterclass in sympathetic updating, merging new technology into the Victorian-Edwardian surroundings to give us the kernel of a museum of the Bay.

Unlike many other Welsh attractions, it doesn’t lay on the sonorous, serious voiceovers. And the toil and turmoil of the Welsh working classes isn’t applied with a spatula. Instead, it does what many people would prefer. Iit says: “See this building? This is what it looked like around here 100 years ago when the Pierhead opened its doors”. The use of screens across the windows for a brief history of the building is particularly effective in this respect.

To top it all off, the first exhibition comprises a collection of pictures by Philip Jones Griffiths, a Welshman, one of the most important photographers of his time, and a chief chronicler of the Vietnam War (although, sadly, none of his work from that conflict is on display in the Pierhead).

I left the Pierhead not only extremely impressed but considerably moved. It has long been a huge bugbear of mine that the Bay is littered with architectural wonders gone to seed (quite literally, given the amount of foliage springing from some), while crashingly unimaginative pieces like Mermaid Quay take pride of place.

The greatest affront is the Corys Building on the corner of Bute Street (you know – opposite that unfinished concrete car park…). From WalesHome colleague Daran Hill’s office, there is an opportunity to fully appreciate the intricate carvings on this silent shell. Its wide windows on the front elevation have been covered with dark chipboard for years. The neglect of this building is more than an insult. It borders on criminal. The Corys Building is more than capable of fulfilling some kind of civic function, and Cardiff County Council should (if it is not already) begin an urgent review over its future.

Similarly, something must be done about the ground floor of 113-116 Bute Street. Once a bank, it houses the most impressive plaster frescos I know of in the city. There has been abortive plans to open a nightspot there, but nothing has ever come of it. There is evidence of damp there now – the great destroyer of plaster detail.

Before anyone says – well, you can’t move buildings, it is worth pointing out that other fine constructs from Tiger Bay’s halcyon days have been given a new lease of life, with Cambrian Building and Saint Line House on Mount Stuart Square providing the outstanding examples. These have all been commercial renovations, so the question remains – where is Cadw in all of this? Both the exterior of Corys Building and those frescos are worthy of listing, but are they protected? Who knows? If they are, then the process is failing, because both are succumbing to the effects of time and neglect.

If you haven’t yet visited the Pierhead building, I would strongly urge that you do. Perhaps not as grand as City Hall, it nonetheless rivals its beauty, and the Assembly should be roundly applauded for the work it has done there. But this renovation should provide a turning point, a moment when we say no to further lacklustre development in the Bay, and yes to the bringing back to life of buildings that we should be proud to have in Cardiff.