From award winning buildings to the intricately beautiful Victorian arcades, the city has an array of fascinating architecture to explore. With a blend of old and new, the architectural styles and buildings are different but all equally as spectacular. Take a day to wander through the city and take it all in. Here are some of our favourite locations:
1. Leeds Central Library
Leeds Central Library is a stunning building home to Leeds’s main public library services. Designed to complement the Town Hall to its left, this grand building boasts an Italianate façade in Yorkshire stone. Tucked away inside is the impressive Tiled Hall, now home to a café. Photo: google
2. Leeds Town Hall
Designed by Leeds architect Cuthbert Broderick, Leeds Town Hall was built in 1858 and opened by Queen Victoria herself in the same year. It was the city’s tallest building when it was constructed, and remains one of the largest town halls in the UK standing at 68.6m (225ft high). Photo: Carl Milner Photography
3. LGI
The original Victorian Leeds General Infirmary, now the Martin Wing, is a stunning example of Victorian Gothic architecture. This impressive site was completed in 1869, and included a Winter Garden, designed on the advice of Miss Florence Nightingale by renowned architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, famed for St Pancras Station and London’s Albert Memorial.
4. Leeds Civic Hall
Dominating Millennium Square is Leeds Civic Hall, which took over from the Town Hall as the city’s main municipal building. Construction began in the height of the great depression in 1931 and utilised many who would otherwise have been unemployed. If you look closely, you can see two 2.3 metres high gold-leafed owls on top of its twin towers which are joined by four more owls on columns in Millennium Square. Photo: Leeds City Council
5. Broadcasting Place
You’ll either love or hate this distinctive building but either way it will catch your eye. The rusty looking angular building is owned by Leeds Beckett University and has won awards for its fascinating design, beating Dubai’s Berj Khalifa to the title of ‘Best Tall Building in the World’. The structure is clad in Cor-Ten steel, which weathers over time giving it its distinctive red colour and its nickname ‘The Rusty Nail’. Photo: Cloud9
6. Grand Theatre
This distinctive theatre has been described as ‘probably the finest of its size in Britain’ and it’s not hard to see why. The unusual architecture takes inspiration from European churches and mixes Romanesque and Gothic styles, with the interior being just as striking as the exterior. Photo: Carl Milner Photography