The building is listed Grade II.[5] Its architect wasAdrian Gilbert Scott, who specialised in ecclesiastical buildings.
On aGreek Cross plan, it is built of steel girders and brick, with a reinforced concrete spire.[6] On the outside, the plan becomes a series of rectangular blocks.[7]
It is notable for its elongated and tapered roundparabolic arches (described as 'camel vaulted' at the time of its listing).[1] Its mixed ortransitional style combinesArt Deco orJazz Modern with elements suggesting Hispanic Moorish, ancient Persian or Egyptian.[8]Gavin Stamp's descriptive phrase 'Jazz Modern Byzantine' was used in the church's listing.[9]
^Harwood, Elain."The Use of Reinforced Concrete in Early 20th Century Churches".buildingconservation.com. Retrieved6 February 2023.In the immediate post-war period, reinforced concrete was the natural material to use due to its cheapness and availability. Bricks and steel remained in short supply even after the end of building restrictions in November 1954, allowing church building to resume. It is possible to pick out only the most striking examples here. Sir Giles and Adrian Gilbert Scott turned to the parabolic arch as a basis of construction, Sir Giles initially with his rejected designs for the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral in 1944, and Adrian at St Leonard's, St Leonard's on Sea, Hastings, of 1953-61 and at SS Mary and Joseph, Lansbury. The latter, was part of the Festival of Britain's 'Live Architecture' show at Lansbury, belatedly built in 1951-4.
^Walker, Paul D. (1985)."Developments in Catholic Churchbuilding in the British Isles, 1945-1980"(PDF) (PhD diss., University of Sheffield). QuotingIan Nairn ( 'Lansbury Centrepiece',Architectural Review, October 1954, p.263-4). p. 340. Retrieved6 February 2023."Pretentious and timid" and "aggressive and flaccid" was how Ian Nairn described it, with a grandiose conceit asserted from far and near. The coffin-shaped windows, and the Egyptian-arched main portal, served only to endorse Nairn's view of this massively centralised pile of brick as being a "free standing crushing bathos".
