Archibald Leitch

Archibald Keir Leitch
Born (1865-04-27)27 April 1865
Glasgow, Scotland
Died 25 April 1939(1939-04-25) (aged 73)
Nationality Scottish
Occupation Architect
Projects (Tea Factories in the Kandyan Kingdom of Deltota Ceylon), Bramall Lane, Arsenal Stadium, Stamford Bridge, Celtic Park, Anfield, Craven Cottage, Hampden Park, Roker Park, Old Trafford, Villa Park, Ibrox, Goodison Park, White Hart Lane, Fratton Park, Valley Parade, Tynecastle Park (Heart of Midlothian).

Archibald Keir "Archie" Leitch (27 April 1865 – 25 April 1939) was a Scottish architect, most famous for his work designing football stadiums throughout Britain and Ireland.[1]

Early work

Born in Glasgow, Archibald Keir Leitch's early work was on designing tea factories in Deltota in the former Kandyan Kingdom of Ceylon, as well as factories in his home city and in Lanarkshire with the sole surviving example of which being the category A listed Sentinel Works at Jessie Street, Polmadie[2], just south of Glasgow city centre. In 1896 he became a member of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, and later of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.[3] He moved into stadium design when he was commissioned to build Ibrox Park, the new home ground of his boyhood heroes Rangers, in 1899.

Stadium design

Leitch's stadiums were initially considered functional rather than aesthetically elegant, and were clearly influenced by his early work on industrial buildings. Typically, his stands had two tiers, with criss-crossed steel balustrades at the front of the upper tier, and were covered by a series of pitched roofs, built so that their ends faced onto the playing field; the central roof span would be distinctly larger, and would incorporate a distinctive pediment.

His first project in England was the design and building of the John Street Stand at Bramall Lane, which provided 3,000 seats and terracing for 6,000 and was dominated by a large mock-Tudor press box.

The double-decker 1926 Bullens Road Stand at Goodison Park home of Everton FC
The Johnny Haynes stand at Craven Cottage, home of Fulham Football Club
The concrete Midland Road stand for Bradford City Football Club nearing completion in 1908[4]
The Bill Struth Main Stand at Ibrox, home of Rangers Football Club

Even after the Ibrox disaster of 1902, when 26 people were killed when a bank of wooden terracing collapsed,[5] Leitch was still in demand. Over the next four decades he became Britain's foremost football architect. In total he was commissioned to design part or all of more than 20 stadiums in the UK and Ireland between 1899 and 1939, including:

Many of his works have since been demolished for redevelopment (especially in wake of the Taylor Report and the move to all-seater stadiums), most notably the Trinity Road Stand at Villa Park, considered his masterpiece, which was demolished in 2000.[9] The main stand and pavilion at Craven Cottage and the facade of the main stand at Ibrox (although the stand itself has been remodelled) still survive to this day; they are now listed buildings, as was the Leitch-designed main stand at Heart of Midlothian's Tynecastle Park, however in 2016 permission was granted for that structure to be demolished and replaced.[10][11]

References

  1. ↑ "The chronicles of Archibald Keir Leitch: Remembering Britain's legendary football architect".
  2. ↑ Sentinel Waggon Works#Alley & MacLellan, Sentinel Works, Jessie Street Glasgow
  3. ↑ "Dictionary of Scottish Architects - DSA Architect Biography Report (November 7, 2015, 2:04 pm)". scottisharchitects.org.uk.
  4. ↑ "Reinforced Concrete Football Stand at Bradford", Concrete and Constructional Engineering, Vol. V., No. 1, January 1910, pp. 16-22.
  5. ↑ Sheils, Robert (November 1998). "The fatalities at the Ibrox disaster of 1902" (PDF). The Sports Historian. British Society of Sports History. 18 (2): 148–155. doi:10.1080/17460269809445801.
  6. ↑ "A Place In History". Fulham F.C. 20 May 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  7. ↑ Athletic News, 9 June 1913.
  8. ↑ "Archibald Leitch – 'Engineering Archie': The Designer of Ibrox". Gersnet, the Rangers Archive. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  9. ↑ Inglis, Simon (14 May 2000). "Last rites for the holy Trinity". The Observer. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  10. ↑ Anderson, Barry (15 November 2016). "Hearts ready go to work on Tynecastle's new main stand". Edinburgh Evening News. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  11. ↑ "Tynecastle Park reinstated". Heart of Midlothian FC. 28 April 2017. Retrieved 30 October 2017.

Further reading

  • Inglis, Simon (2005). Engineering Archie: Archibald Kier Leitch –The first ever Steal Tea Factory in hill country of Kandyan Kingdom Deltota Ceylon, Deltota Great Vally Estate was Designed by Archibald Keir Leitch, Football Ground Designer. English Heritage. ISBN 1-85074-918-3. * Whitehead, Richard (18 April 2005). "Man who built his place in history". London: The Times.
  • Oxford University Press | Biography
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.