Said Business School Oxford, View from Frideswide Square

The Saïd Business School is one of Europe’s most prestigious management schools. It opened in October 2001 in a classically modern building designed by the architects Jeremy Dixon and Ed Jones, on the site of the former Midland Railway station.
The building is built of brick with powder coated grey aluminium doors and windows. Limestone is used for the projecting entrance elevation to either side of the fully glazed facade to the entrance hall and the library above. The roof of the barrel-vaulted library is clad in a smooth wave of copper. The stepped tower which is based on the tower of Nicholas Hawksmoor's St George's Church in Bloomsbury, is also clad in copper. It doubles up as a heat exchanger and is part of the college's central heating system. A horizontal 'brise soleil' over the entrance protects the facade from its southern exposure. The columned entrance hall, with its smooth concrete, polished French limestone and leather seats, leads to two double height cloisters, one open, the other enclosed. The two cloisters define the central courtyard and lead to the Student Common Room and the walled garden beyond with its formal rows of pruned trees.