St Catherines College Bicycle Store

Shed in St Catherine's College, Oxford

St Catherine's College Bicycle Store

"a bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture"

General information
Type| Shed
Architectural style| Modernist
Location| St Catherine's College, Oxford
Coordinates| 51°45′24″N 1°14′44″W﻿ / ﻿51.7568°N 1.2455°W﻿ / 51.7568; -1.2455
Construction started| 1961
Governing body| St Catherine's College

Listed Building – Grade I

Official name| St Catherine's College Bicycle Store
Designated| 30 March 1993
Reference no.| 1229973
Design and construction
Architect(s)| Arne Jacobsen

St Catherine's College Bicycle Store is located at St Catherine's College in the city of Oxford, in England. Designed by Arne Jacobsen in the 1960s, the structure is a Grade I listed building. One of some fifteen such bike sheds listed by Historic England, it is the only one to hold the highest, Grade I, designation.

## History and description[edit]

The predecessor of St Catherine's College, Oxford was instituted in 1868, to enable students from poorer backgrounds to attend the university without taking on the expense of enrolling in a college. St Catherine's gained full college status in 1962 and is now the university's largest.[1] Plans for a new site for the college were begun in the 1950s, and the college chose the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen to develop the site on Holywell Great Meadow just to the north of the city centre.[2] Jacobsen oversee every aspect of the college's design, and the bicycle shed is an example of his close attention to all elements of student life.[3] The architectural merit of the college and its grounds was recognised in 1993 when the college campus was designated as a Grade I listed site.[4] Some individual buildings on the site have their own listings, including the bicycle shed,[5] and the campus itself is listed at Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.[6]

The bicycle shed is circular in design, built in yellow brick, and roofed.[5] Its Grade I listing makes it unique among the roughly fifteen such bike sheds which are listed. Historic England, in its discussion of the listings, recalled Nikolaus Pevsner's opening to his An Outline of European Architecture, "a bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture".[7]

## References[edit]

1. ^ "St Catherine's College history". Retrieved 2 December 2023.
2. ^ "College History". St Catherine's College. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
3. ^ "Buildings & Grounds". St Catherine's College. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
4. ^ Historic England. "St Catherines College, Podium and All Buildings Upon It (Grade I) (1229934)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
5. ^ a b Historic England. "St Catherine's College Bicycle Store (Grade I) (1229973)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
6. ^ Historic England. "Landscape at St Catherine's College (Grade I) (1001388)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
7. ^ "6 Listed Bicycle Sheds". Historic England. 4 June 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2023.

## External links[edit]

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