Client: The Dean & Chapter of York Minster
Architect: Andrew Arrol
Contractor: William Anelay
Construction of new steps and ramp to the South Door of the Minster integrated with a wholesale reworking of the streetscape.
The South side of the minster had long been a problem with a set of steps crammed between the roadway and the South Front and a crummy temporary ramp for wheel chair users.
This wholesale reworking of the entire area reduces the roadway to a series of delicate alterations in the surface treatment – in place of the clumsy kerbs, tarmac and double yellow lines. This required a complex collaboration between the city traffic authorities, planners and conservationists.
The steps and ramp are replaced in a permanent form that is at the same time simple, practical and extremely elegant – using the ancient geometry of the vesica piscis to make a carefully managed formal gesture in an irregularly-shaped space.
The detailing is simple and robust. The entire project greatly enhances this side of the Minster. We were delighted to learn that a similar treatment is to be further extended round the South and West sides of the Minster.
