32 Y E A R B O O K 2 0 1 8 Archive photograph of Drawing Office 2, c1912 (Photo: National Museums Northern Ireland) Drawing Office 2 today, home to the hotel’s Island Bar, incorporating original Villeroy & Boch tiles Heritage Enterprise grants in 2013, the project became the first to secure the maximum £5 million grant to support its restoration. Once the heart of the commercial shipyard, the building would now become the heart of a vibrant heritage and leisure destination. In September 2017 the former Harland & Wolff Headquarter Building and Drawing Offices, derelict for nearly 30 years, reopened its doors as Titanic Hotel Belfast. The fully restored Grade B+ listed building has been converted into a 119-bedroom luxury hotel, retaining as much as possible of its heritage. Visitors can stay in rooms that were once technical offices, dine where draftsmen developed plans for ocean liners and visit the heritage rooms where some of the biggest deals in shipbuilding were struck. Inspiration has been taken from the building’s original décor – documented in the Welch Collection of images (RJ Welch was Harland & Wolff’s photographer between 1894 and 1920) – including the anaglypta wallpaper, statement lighting and heavy brocade materials. As well as retaining the ‘Corridor of Power’ on the ground floor, which consists of the telephone exchange, Lord Pirrie’s office, the boardroom, chairman’s office and Thomas Andrew’s office, over 76 heritage features have been retained including radiators, doors, office dividers and tiles. Many features can be traced back to their original use on the ships. For example, the Villeroy & Boch bathroom floor tiles discovered in the toilet block were exactly the same as those used for RMS Titanic’s swimming pool and can even be seen today on the ocean bed. Carefully salvaged from the toilet block and restored, the tiles now adorn the Island Bar in Drawing Office 2 (bottom left). The restoration programme has been a great success. However, the real triumph has been the project’s engagement with former shipyard workers. Titanic Foundation recognised early on in the development process that there was an opportunity to reconnect the building with local people and the wider area. The shipyard was the lifeblood of many neighbouring communities: it was where people worked, socialised and, in many cases, all that they knew. As Titanic Quarter grew, this connection was slowly disappearing, leading to the perception that local people had been forgotten. A series of reunion events was organised, promoted through H&W pensioners bulletins, local social clubs and the press. Over 130 former employees attended the reunion events, including relatives of those who had worked in the shipyard at some stage in their lives. They shared their stories of life in the yard, and their experiences as messenger boys and draftsmen or, for the female workers, as secretaries, typists and tracers. Inspired by these personal accounts, a series of bas reliefs was commissioned for Drawing Office 1, the hotel’s main heritage and event space. On one side of the room, the job titles of the former employees are recorded, while on the other is a history in images, capturing some of the key vessels these former employees worked on such as the SS Canberra, the P&O ocean liner that went on to serve in the Falklands War, and Sea Quest, the world’s largest oil drilling rig. Visitors and guests can also hear personal accounts at discreetly placed ‘listening posts’.
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