Dulwich Picture Gallery
Dulwich Picture Gallery bicentennial year celebrates the founding of the first public gallery in Britain. The design for the building by Sir John Soane was groundbreaking in 1811, setting a standard for the next two centuries.
Ian McInnes discusses Soane’s design and the work of three top contemporary Architects who design art space today and who will be speaking at Dulwich Picture Gallery in February, Tony Fretton, Adam Caruso and Rick Mather.
Sir John Soane’s basic plan for the Dulwich Picture Gallery – a sequence of top lit inter-connected rooms with large areas of blank wall on which to display pictures, has been the standard model for contemporary public art galleries for many years. As American architect Philip Johnson has said “the Dulwich Gallery set forever the way to show pictures.”
A picture gallery designed to house a specific art collection open to the general public was a unique opportunity for Soane. His response to the brief was imaginative, providing a functional enclosure with the most efficient natural lighting technology available to him – for the early C19 had only candle light available. Pictures could only be viewed during the day.
Nicholas Pevsner, in his An Outline of European Architecture, considered the building to be “a very early example of ‘modern’ architecture” – where the form and appearance of the building is directly related to its function”. However we know that the elevations are not as Soane originally intended – he would have preferred more ornate facades – but luckily for us a lack of funds meant that he was forced into a more austere (and better) design.
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum in Southern Denmark. (Tony Fretton)
Tony Fretton’s most recent project is the highly regarded new British Embassy in Warsaw. His gallery projects include the innovative Lisson Gallery, 1992, in Paddington, an exemplary space for displaying art while, which offers at the same time, both a rewarding architectural experience and a positive engagement with the surrounding area.
The practice’s strength has been in reworking existing buildings to provide high quality art spaces with a strong social programme – the Camden Arts Centre, 2004, the Artsway Centre in Sway Hampshire and the Quay Arts Centre in Newport, Isle of Wight, are typical. The practice’s most significant new building for the display of art, the Fuglsang Kunstmuseum in Southern Denmark, houses a permanent collection of Danish fine art dating from the period 1780-1980. It opened in January 2008 and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize Building of the Year in 2009.
The new building has the formal abstractness and romantic profile of neighbouring buildings and is designed to harmonise with the idyllic rural setting of the Fuglsang Estate. The facades of the Museum are constructed from white painted brick, with roof lights in a grey brick to reflect the colour of the roofs of the buildings around it.
New Art Gallery Walsall. (Adam Caruso)
Adam Caruso and Peter St John established their practice in 1990 and came to public attention through winning the Walsall Art Gallery design competition. Further successes include the V&A Children’s Gallery, the Nottingham Contemporary Art Centre (opened in 2009), and, most recently, they have been selected to work on Tate Britain and the Sir John Soane Museum in Lincolns Inn.
Contemporary galleries are different from their predecessors; they need space for temporary exhibitions, events, education facilities, conference rooms, shops and restaurants. Also, in many cases the construction of a gallery is seen as a stimulus to the regeneration of the surrounding area.
The practice’s work responds to these requirements by challenging the installation and production of contemporary art offering new ways for performers and audiences to interact. Modern architects are required to have an understanding of social change and sensitivity to history and context as well as giving consideration to the emotional potential and physical qualities of construction materials.
Ashmolean Museum. (Rick Mather)
Rick Mather’s major contribution to contemporary gallery design is his skill in the sympathetic marrying of new construction with more traditional buildings. His work, as demonstrated in the extension to the Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2000, is not only about transparency and subtlety, it is also combined with an innovative expertise in the intelligent re-interpretation of existing, often listed structures, and in making sure that the completed project is sustainable for the future.
His most recent completed gallery projects are the major extensions to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and the smaller extension to the Towner Gallery at Eastbourne. Past projects include extensions to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and the Wallace Collection in Manchester Square. Rick Mather’s solutions enhance the original yet are fine buildings on their own.
Displaying Art, a series of three talks takes place on Wednesdays, 10.30 – 11.30am in the Linbury room at Dulwich Picture Gallery:
– 2 February, Tony Fretton. Tony Fretton Architects
– 9 February, Adam Caruso, Caruso St John
– 16 February, Rick Mather, Rick Mather Architects.
Series of 3 £25, £20 Friends. Single lectures, £10, £8 Friends. Tickets available at the Friends’ desk in the Gallery. Credit cards bookings ring 020 8299 8750 10am-noon, or email friendsticketing@dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk
