The headquarters for West Glamorgan County Council was built in two phases between 1979-84, as a prestigious piece of civic architecture to go alongside the wider Swansea Maritime Quarter development. The choice of a presteige location reflected the desire for a prestigious and visible piece of civic design to announce the newly formed County Council of 1974, and sought to bring together on one site as many of the previously disparate arms of the authority as possible. Designed in Brutalist style (only the second to be designed in a non-Classical idiom after the Gwent County Hall at Cwmbran - now demolished) by the County Architects Department, with J. Webb as County Architect and Charles W. Quick as the job architect, its fabric and form was determined by it's location. The budget was £29 million.

Only metres from the sea and on reclaimed land, the material needed to be durable and with low maintainace requirements with Webb stating 'Concrete was chosen for a number of reasons. Brickwork would have been too domestic for a building of this size and nature, and might have given rise to problems of efflorescence so close as we are to the sea. then there was the all important question of shape, which we could not have attained in brickwork... but for which concrete was the ideal material. My concept also had in mind the proud style and strength of old Portland stone buildings.' The plan form of the building aimed to avoid 'massing' either as a cube or a long, thin, spine of architecture, both of which would have blocked views to the seafront, instead creating 'arms' of accommodation that were articulated at key nodal points such as lift shafts, stair cases, toilets, or the council chamber. This also had the effect of creating a series of landscapes courtyards around the exterior of the building. In terms of height, the building was kept relatively low, of between five and six storeys, to ensure it didn't overwhelm the seaside location or block views from the hill behind. The building is characterised by long horizontal bands of concrete interspersed with dark bands of glazing - a common architectural trait for civic and office buildings of the period - with each nodal point clad in vertically ribbed concrete to emphasise the verticality and help shed water. The 'arms' are faced in 1,800 pre-cast concrete panels made from an exposed aggregate finish of calcined flint, imported from Dieppe, embedded in white cement. The Council Chamber, in its compressed octagon shape, sits above the entrance, while the rectangular lozenge of the ground floor was to be utilised as an exhibition space. 

Webb also stated 'We have tried to produce a building, and I think we have succeeded, which is digified and dramatic in its scale, line and visula impact as befits it's importance as the County Headquarters for West Glamorgan'. 

RCAHMW, May 2021.

Source: Richard Porch, 'The Civic Centre / County Hall: an example of Seafront Modernism', The Swansea History Journal, no.19, pp.19-28