City Hall Research

After deciding to commemorate Queen Victoria's opening of Leeds City Hall, I visited the building to gain some contextual research. There was some historical documentation in the building such as the certification for Queen Victoria's visit and a golden plaque saying there had been 20 royal visits overall to City Hall.

Something that struck me immediately was the two statues of the Queen Victoria and Albert and two of their children's figureheads in the entrance way. These were striking and were incredible pieces to commemorate the building's history.

I also spoke to several people about the event and was eventually given a sheet of information. Something that I found particularly interesting was that in 1992 they had a serious problem with starlings roosting in the building's ornate nooks and crannies. I decided to develop this research into a collage, specifically influenced by DR ME. I decided to combine the iconic figures of Victoria and Albert with Starling heads on top of the two figures.

This created quite a dramatic effect which could have been developed further to use more tones. However, by just using starling heads it felt like the building wasn't being commemorated enough, I wanted something that nodded to the intricate architecture that Cuthbert Brodrick crafted in the 1850s.