Powell & Moyà (1964-68)
Christ Church College is about as trad Oxford as you can get. It’s located right in the heart of the city; its chapel doubles as the city cathedral; its main entrance with Christopher Wren’s Tom Tower is instantly recognisable; and it was famously used as a location for the first Harry Potter movie… no wonder there are huge queues to visit.
(In fact, I’m pretty sure Christ Church is the only college that has a ticketing system for visitors.)
At its northern border, however, Christ Church is separated from the city’s Jacobethan Town Hall by Blue Boar Street, a narrow lane running parallel to the High Street – and it is here that Powell & Moyà’s modernist Blue Boar Quad is to be found.
Completed in 1968, it comprises student accommodation (61 rooms and four penthouses, no less) and attained Grade II* listed status in 2006, when it was described as “one of the finest buildings to emerge from university expansion in the 1960s” by then Heritage Minister Andrew McIntosh.
Viewed externally from Blue Boar Street, its somewhat staggered design successfully disguises the mass of the building, especially given the old wall that forms the college’s northern boundary and the much older buildings on the other side of the street.
Viewed internally, however, there is no such restraint – as visible from these images from the quad’s subsequent renovation in the late 2000s, where the scale and rhythm of the building becomes clear.
Address: Blue Boar Street, Oxford OX1 4EE
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