Rooms with a View – Turner Contemporary in Margate
About halfway along the promenade in the coastal town of Margate in south-east England, a terrace of shabby shopfronts has been extended by what looks like an industrial facility. A few steps further, the illusion changes. What had seemed to be an industrial structure is, in fact, the Turner Contemporary, an art gallery consisting of six white cubic volumes in an apparently loose alignment. From the outside, there is a slightly haphazard feeling to the composition, although the layout was carefully considered by the architects. Inside one finds a state of complete clarity, with spaces logically arranged along a central circulation spine. Each of the volumes is in concrete topped by a simple, south-facing, monopitch steel roof. The taller facades are oriented to the north and the sea.
