studiometrico

In December 2007 an Italian art dealer decided to expand his business in the prosperous land of Albion. He found the right location in the heart of London, and made a deal with an Irish man who owned the property. He then appointed us to develop a project to transform the 250 sqm building into a new contemporary art gallery. Then came The Crisis…

Click on the image to view the building as found

The existing building was organized on four floors (basement, ground, first, second and third) and divided in two blocks: the main one facing the street, and the rear one toward a courtyard surrounded by other houses. The split levels of the two parts of the building were connected by a steep staircase placed in the middle and inside the perimeter of the main block.

Situation plan (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

To make the building adapt to its future use, we needed more generous and regular rooms. To achieve a more flexible and open space – that was considered necessary to display art works – we proposed to demolish the existing staircase and to use the rear block to build a new and more relaxed one that could serve fewer, but bigger, rooms placed in the front.

Part of the brief was also to add a new storey to the building according to a planning permission that had been previously submitted and accepted by the authorities. This expansion of the building could enable the building to host a new office for the landlord as well. The art gallery would then occupy basement, ground, first and second floor while the office would use third and fourth floor.

The combination of these two activities within the same building provoked a logistic problem and an architectural challenge for us. The available space was limited, therefore the two functions could only be served by an unique circulation system. The two activities were not related, therefore the staircase, the corridors and the lobbies had to be treated as a common space and the thresholds to the ‘private’ areas had to be secure and controlled.

For these reasons our design proposal was organised around the new circulation system that, despite the reduced dimensions of the building, was conceived as an articulated sequence of corridors, lobbies, ramps and flights of stairs constantly switching angles: a winding pathway that vertically connected the different floors and horizontally separated the enclosed rooms assigned to the two different activities.

Plan 00-02 (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

A long corridor was necessary to reach the staircase from the entrance of the building on the ground floor, and even if this element reduced the width of the main exhibition room on the street side, we achieved a sequence of relatively generous rooms – both on this and on the other levels – that could be used as small exhibition spaces and that presented always different proportions and heights.

Plan 03-04 (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

On the second floor the ‘public’ staircase reached a lobby that gave access to the top floor of the gallery and, through a small corridor, to the last rotated flight of stairs leading up to the third floor occupied by the office of the landlord. The fourth floor was conceived as a mezzanine facing the lower level and the street in front of the building.

Section a-a (click above the image to open)

Section b-b (click above the image to open)

Section c-c (click above the image to open)

The different parts of the building have been treated, in our proposal, with different materials and details. The exhibition rooms of the gallery had been conceived as neutral and clean environment, while the ‘common spaces’ and the more private rooms -both of the gallery and the office – have been characterized with the use of warmer, domestic finishings.

The entrance from the street

The entrance from the street

Gallery – ground floor

Gallery – ground floor

Gallery – first floor

Gallery – second floor

Gallery – second floor

Office – third and fourth floors

Since we have presented our first design proposal – which consists in the materials showed here – the development of this project has been long, complicated and contorted. The goals that our client (the Italian art dealer) and ourselves were sharing with great enthusiasm have been made impossible by the way the Landlord had carried on the operation. The British local architects – that we had involved – acted in a very ambiguous and ungrateful way and even now – that this project is ‘dead’ – they are trying to promote themselves with the feathers they have been stealing…

It might also be because the so-called ‘economical crisis’ that this very good opportunity to work in England has vanished.  Anyway we consider this project another fundamental bit of ‘good experience’, and we are very happy to disclose – as we always do – the outcome of our work.

Design Team:

Lorenzo Bini
Francesca Murialdo
Valentina Cocco

Note: the works of Maurizio Cattelan, Simone Berti, Yan Pei Ming, Elmgreen & Dragset, Sam Samore, Rudolf Stingel, Steven Parrino, Gelitin and others that are featured in our photo-montages have nothing to do with the real facts but have been captured on the web and used just because we sincerely admire them.

Tags: Art Gallery, Contemporary Art, London, Refurbishment

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 1st, 2009 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Interior, Projects.