Gallery Building in London
- Sabine Drey
The new Newport Street Gallery occupies a narrow site between the train tracks and terraced housing. The client and artist Damien Hirst has a large collection of contemporary art, and he decided to make it available to the public. The building ensemble is made up of 3 buildings dating to 1913 (all listed on the historic registry), which were erected to function as workshops for the era’s booming theatre scene, and two new structures flanking them at the ends of the row. The linear composition is headed off by an elongated new shed-roof structure containing the reception and the restaurant, and culminates in the administration wing, which has a museum shop on the ground floor. The architects took pains to match the existing structures; for example, they chose brick masonry with a similar hue to that of the neighbours and continued the row of windows at the base of the building. This alludes to the fact that the buildings have a shared purpose. And the gallery levels do in fact extend the length of the four blocks and allow both a flexible approach to using the space and a wide variety of exhibition concepts. The architects joined up with the engineers to develop a comprehensive structural system for the entire complex: it eases the linkage of the different wings. First, due to the large loads created by the artworks, to prevent stresses from arising in the old masonry walls it was necessary to insert new ceilings. The composite ceilings are suspended from the steel frame, which is independent of the single-leaf brick envelope. The steel structure also supports the old timber roof structure. The team also prescribed an additional layer of concrete – with smooth, nearly joint-free surfaces – atop the load-bearing floors. Visitors reach the exhibition levels via three new spiral stairs of solid oak. Their elegant upward curve is underscored by carefully detailed handrails consisting of prefabricated concrete units integrated in the brickwork and the stairs’ smooth stringers. On the top level, sunlight pours into the spaces through the new skylights and draws attention to the gleaming-white original roof trusses.
