The Denys Wilkinson Building is a prominent 1960s building at the southern end of the Banbury Road

Banbury Road

Banbury Road is a major arterial road in Oxford, England, running from St Giles' at the south end, north towards Banbury through the leafy suburb of North Oxford and Summertown, with its local shopping centre. Parallel and to the west is the Woodstock Road, which it meets at the junction with St...

 in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, designed by Philip Dowson

Philip Dowson

Sir Philip Henry Manning Dowson CBE, PRA is a leading British architect. From 1993 to 1999 he served as President of the Royal Academy.-Career:...

 at Arup

Arup

Arup is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom which provides engineering, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of the built environment. The firm is present in Africa, the Americas, Australasia, East Asia, Europe and the...

 in 1967.

The building houses the astrophysics

Astrophysics

Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...

 and particle physics

Particle physics

Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...

 departments at Oxford University. It was originally built for the then Department of Nuclear Physics

Nuclear physics

Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...

 and named the Nuclear Physics Laboratory. In 2001, the building was renamed as the Denys Wilkinson Building, in honour of the British nuclear physicist Sir Denys Wilkinson

Denys Wilkinson

Sir Denys Haigh Wilkinson FRS is a British nuclear physicist. He was educated at Loughborough Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge. He holds the higher degree of ScD, an HonFilDr degree and an HonLLD degree...

 (born 1922), who was involved in its original creation.

The building is located on the corner of Banbury Road to the west and Keble Road

Keble Road

Keble Road is a short road running east-west in central Oxford, England. To the west is the southern end of the Banbury Road with St Giles' Church opposite. To the east is Parks Road with the University Parks opposite...

 to the south. To the north is the tall Thom Building of Oxford University's Department of Engineering Science, also built in the 1960s. It forms part of the Keble Road Triangle. Attached is a large and distinctive fan-shaped superstructure that was built to house a Van de Graaff generator

Van de Graaff generator

A Van de Graaff generator is an electrostatic generator which uses a moving belt to accumulate very high voltages on a hollow metal globe on the top of the stand. It was invented in 1929 by American physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff. The potential differences achieved in modern Van de Graaff...

. Pevsner commented that this marked "the arrival of the 'New Brutalism' in Oxford".