Main Building Centenary Profile
Art and Influences
The Council Chamber boasts a gallery of portraits of former Principals and Vice-Chancellors, who have helped to shape the University; and outside it on the first floor are tablets honouring staff and students who died on active service during the world wars.
The building’s exterior decoration includes royal statues, the coats of arms of benefactors, and a frieze of figures. Downstairs in the Viriamu Jones Gallery, however, is the building’s most famous work of art – the statue of John Viriamu Jones himself.
This piece by former Cardiff student, Sir William Goscombe John, RA, Wales’ foremost sculptor, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1906, before finding its home in the Main Building.
It stood – or sat – unmoved until 1998, when the three-ton artwork was lifted on pulleys and moved 20 feet to a more central position, enabling improved disabled access to the building.
Main Building - Civic Centre entrance
The statue has seen all manner of events over the last 100 years: the building suffered damage in World War II, as evidenced by pock marks in the stone on the courtyard side; there have been numerous VIP visitors over the decades; untold numbers of students have passed through its lecture theatres; ground-breaking discoveries have been made in its laboratories; and vital decisions reached in its meeting rooms.
The building is a popular location for films and television series and has been transformed into Smithfield Market for TV’s Drovers’ Gold in the 1990s, and more recently a science-fiction location for the Sarah Jane Adventures.
Yet even the most imaginative dramas may struggle to compete with the true 100-year story of Cardiff University’s Main Building.
Principal source: Cardiff University: A Celebration by Vanessa Cunningham and John Goodwin.