Dezeen Screen: in the third movie made by Dezeen in 2009 at the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Architecture Biennale, architects Neville Mars and Marco Casagrande explain their projects. Watch the movie »
Dutch studio MVRDV have won a design competition to build a Comic and Animation Museum in Hangzhou, China, formed of eight giant balloon-shaped forms.
Each balloon will contain a different function within the museum, including two exhibition spaces that will display cartoons, comics and animations.
The permanent exhibition space will spiral out of its chamber and on through the building to connect with three auditoriums and a comic book library.
Where balloons touch an opening is created internally, allowing views between spaces.
More projects by MVRDV on Dezeen »
More museums on Dezeen »
Here are some more details from the architects:
MVRDV win competition for China Comic and Animation Museum, Hangzhou
Hangzhou urban planning bureau has announced MVRDV winner of the international design competition for the China Comic and Animation Museum (CCAM) in Hangzhou, China. MVRDV won with a design referring to the speech balloon: a series of eight balloon shaped volumes create an internally complex museum experience of in total 30.000m2.
Part of the project is also a series of parks on islands, a public plaza and a 13.000m2 expo centre. Construction start is envisioned for 2012, the total budget is 92 million Euro.
Comics and animations have long been considered a form of entertainment for the younger generations but develop more and more into a sophisticated art form. The initiative for a museum especially for this relatively recent art form creates a platform which will unite the worlds of art and entertainment. By using one of the cartoon’s prime characteristics – the speech balloon – the building will instantly be recognised as place for cartoons, comics and animations. The neutral speech balloon becomes 3d.
The 30.000m2 are distributed over eight volumes which are interconnected allowing for a circular tour of the entire program. Services such as the lobby, education, three theatres/cinemas with in total 1111 seats and a comic book library occupy each their own balloon. If two balloons touch in the interior a large opening allows access and views in-between the volumes. The balloon shape allows for versatile exhibitions, the permanent collection is presented in a chronological spiral whereas the temporary exhibition hall offers total flexibility. Amsterdam based exhibition architects Kossman deJong tested the spaces and designed exhibition configurations which appeal to different age groups and allow large crowds to visit the exhibition.
One of the balloons is devoted to interactive experience in which visitors can actively experiment with all sorts of animation techniques like blue screen, stop motion, drawing, creating emotions etc. The core attraction of this space is a gigantic 3D zoetrope. The routing of the museum permits short or long visits, visits to the cinema, the temporary exhibition or the roof terrace restaurant. The façade of the museum is covered in a cartoon relief referring to a Chinese vase. The monochrome white concrete façade allows the speech balloons to function: texts can be projected onto the façade. The relief was designed in collaboration with Amsterdam based graphic designers JongeMeesters.
Most of the 13.7 ha site is occupied by a new park on a series of islands in White Horse Lake. Reed beds are used to improve the water quality. Boat rides offer an added attraction. A separate expo building of 25.000m2 will house large fairs and the annual China International Comic and Animation Festival (CICAF). In-between expo and CCAM a public plaza will be the centre of this festival which is the county’s largest cartoon and animation event and has been held annually in Hangzhou since 2005.
Hangzhou is a metropolis with 6.4 million inhabitants 180 km southwest of Shanghai. The Museum will become a new focal point on the less populated southern side of Qiantang river. The CCAM will consolidate the city’s leading position as China’s capital of the animation industry. The new Museum will be the icon of a larger development, the Comic and Animation Centre. It comprises a series of hill-shaped buildings containing offices, a hotel and a conference centre of which the first phase is close to completion.
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| Rotterdam Market Hall by MVRDV | Gwanggyo Power Centre by MVRDV | House of Culture by MVRDV |
Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group have won a competition to design a mosque, Islamic centre and museum in Tirana, Albania.
The three buildings will cluster in a triangle at the corner of the site, with two sides aligned with Tirana’s city grid and the third facing Mecca.
Each will twist to curve over a public plaza in the centre, making this public space into an extension of the cultural centre.
The mosque will accommodate 1000 worshippers for daily prayers, with the ability to expand through courtyards and the public plaza to accommodate up to 10,000 people for holy days.
BIG won the competition in collaboration with Martha Schwartz Landscape, Buro Happold , Speirs & Major, Lutzenberger & Lutzenberger, and Global Cultural Asset Management.
The information below is from the architects:
BIG WINS THE COMPETITION TO DESIGN A MAJOR CULTURAL CENTER IN ALBANIA
BIG, Martha Schwartz Landscape, Buro Happold , Speirs & Major, Lutzenberger & Lutzenberger, and Global Cultural Asset Management are today announced as the winning team of the international design competition for a new 27.000 m2 cultural complex in Albania, consisting of a Mosque, an Islamic Centre, and a Museum of Religious Harmony.
The capital Tirana is undergoing an urban transformation which includes the restoration and refurbishment of existing buildings, the construction of a series of new public and private urban structures, and the complete reconceptualization of Scanderbeg Square. This important square is the site of the new cultural complex that will consist of a Mosque, an Islamic Centre, and a Museum of Religious Harmony.
Albania is the crossroads of three major religions: Orthodox Christianity; Catholicism; and Islam. With the recent completion of two new churches, all three religions will now have new places of worship in the heart of Tirana. The complex will not only serve the Muslim community of the city and surrounding areas, but will educate the public about Islamic values and serve as a beacon for religious tolerance.
BIG’s winning entry was selected out of five finalists, including Spanish Architect Andreas Perea Ortega, Architecture Studio from France, Dutch SeARCH and London-based Zaha Hadid.
”The winning proposal was chosen for its ability to create an inviting public space flexible enough to accommodate daily users and large religious events, while harmonically connecting with the Scanderbeg square, the city of Tirana and its citizens across different religions. Additionally the project shines through its beautiful garden surrounding the new Mosque and Center of Islamic Culture which symbolically features the rich vegetation described in Islamic literature. Finally the team’s awareness of the economic aspects of this important development will contribute to a successful realization of this project.” Mayor of Tirana, Edi Rama.
The buildings’ forms emerge from two intersecting axes and formal requirements: the city grid of Tirana which calls for the proper framing of the square and a coherent urban identity, and orientation of the Mosque’s main wall towards Mecca. BIG’s proposal incorporates Tirana’s grid by maintaining the street wall and eaves line, yet rotates the ground floor so both the Mosque and the plaza face the holy city of Islam.
This transformation also opens up a series of plazas—two minor ones on the sides of the Mosque and a major plaza with a minaret in front—which are semi-covered and serve as an urban extension of the place of worship. By turning the mosque inside out and bringing the program and qualities of the Mosque to a public arena, the religion becomes inclusive and inviting, and the cool shaded urban space can be shared by all.
“This project is very significant for us for two reasons: Firstly it is a privilege to contribute to the ambitious rejuvenation of Tirana City – especially since it is happening not by the random accumulation of singular monuments – but rather in accordance with a careful and considerate holistic master plan. Secondly and perhaps most importantly –religious tolerance is one of our greatest challenges today– politically, culturally and even urbanistically. With the construction of the New Mosque of Tirana, The Islamic Center and The Museum of Religious Harmony – Tirana will reestablish the equilibrium by adding a mosque to the newly completed Orthodox and Catholic Cathedrals – making Tirana an example for the rest of the world as a global capital of religious harmony”, Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner of BIG.
The mosque can accommodate up to 1,000 people performing their daily prayers. Through the unique layout of courtyards and public space, the mosque can also expand to accommodate larger groups of 5,000 on Fridays and up to 10,000 on special holy days. The facade with the multitude of rational, rectangular windows finds its inspiration in Islamic mashrabiya screens, which provide shading and privacy while still allowing views out. The light qualities of the mosque will change dramatically throughout the day as the light washes across the curved facades.
“The alignment towards Mecca solves the dilemma inherent in the master plan – in its triangular layout the mosque was somehow tugged in the corner – now it sits at the end of the plaza – framed by its two neighbors. The resultant architecture evokes the curved domes and arches of traditional Islamic architecture – for both the mosque itself and the semi-domed spaces around it”, Thomas Christoffersen, Partner-in-Charge, BIG.
The design also includes The Quran Gardens containing all of the plants mentioned in the Quran in the same amount as the number of times they appear in the holy scripture.
PROJECT “A Mosque for All” New Mosque, Islamic Cultural Center, and Museum of Religious Harmony
TYPE Invited Competition
CLIENT Municipality of Tirana, Albanian Muslim Community
COLLABORATORS Martha Schwartz Landscape, Buro Happold , Speirs & Major, Lutzenberger & Lutzenberger, and Global Cultural Asset Management
SIZE 27000 m2
LOCATION Tirana, Albania
STATUS 1st Prize
DATE May 2nd 2011
Partner-in-Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen
Project Leader: Leon Rost
Project Team: Marcella Martinez, Se Yoon Park, Alessandro Ronfini, Daniel Kidd, Julian Nin Liang, Erick Kristanto, Ho Kyung Lee
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| The Vanishing Mosque by RUX Design for Traffic | Russian Orthodox Center by Arch group & Sade Sarl | Dezeen’s top ten: churches |
Photographer Julien Lanoo has sent us these pictures of an archives centre designed by Paris studio LAN Architecture, which has an exterior of stainless steel studs set into earth-coloured concrete to reflect the colour and texture of the surrounding French landscape.
Designed for energy company EDF, the five storey building will house their paper and micro-film archives, which will occupy around 70km of shelving.
The building also includes offices, which face north-west towards a field of newly-planted trees.
More projects by LAN Architecture on Dezeen »
More architecture photographed by Julien Lanoo on Dezeen »
Here are some further details from the architects:
EDF Archives Centre
A strategic project providing a social and environmental positive impact on the region. The building fully integrates into the landscape as well as it meets environmental quality standards, a fundamental aspect for the EDF’s building strategy.
This building, symbol of the long term and visible presence of EDF in the Meuse and Haute Marne region, hosts the company’s industrial records.
Within the framework of the Meuse and Haute Marne economic support programme, EDF has decided to centralise all its intermediary Engineering Production Management archives in Bure-Saudron. Until now, these paper copy archives had been stored in nuclear, hydraulic and thermal production units, as well as in engineering units and associated services.
The new centre allows the documents’ organisation and it also ameliorates the storage and the utilisation processes. These archives, on paper-based and microfilm-based formats, will occupy about 70 km of shelves. The building has also a laboratory for micro-films, specifically designed for this purpose.
The concept
We realised a five level, 19 m high building within a plot of 3.30 hectares comprehensive of an archives area covering approximately 1,400 m² and a total surface of approximately 7,000 m². This approach results in:
The typology
An archives storage building needs to have a considerable inertia with a minimal exchange with its external setting. The need for fast and simple site management and optimum storage efficiency led us to develop a simple and rational layout. The building is divided into 2 programmes: archives and offices. The archives’ part is composed by 20 storehouses of 200 m² each; with regulated temperature and hygrometry. The blocks can resist fire for 2 hours and they are equipped with a sprinkling system. The offices’ part is N/W oriented, embedded in a natural slope planted with trees and plants. The offices have an ideal view on the surrounding landscape.
The landscape
Tree-planted surfaces give some advantages: from an ecological point of view the trees protect the building against climatic issues. From an aesthetical point of view – and within an idea of landscape integration – they complete the building by inserting a pattern recurring from the landscape: the “merlons”, narrow strips of land planted with hardwoods. The project of the landscape foresees the framing of the views from the offices by planting vegetable masses. Some framings already exist from the highway in the project’s direction. A game of sequences is set in combination with the architectural plan in order to vary the visuals and to put an accent on the building’s continuity with its landscape.
Click above for larger image
Energy
Heat production is principally based on renewable energies and a heat pump. The choice made for the ventilation was to use a double flow ventilation system with heat recuperation. This limits energy consumption resulting from heating and ensures the good sanitary quality of the air. Low voltage luminaries will result in considerable savings in terms of internal loads. Storage areas will be equipped with presence detectors. The high performance of the envelope combined with economic ventilation and lighting systems reduces energy requirements. The use of renewable energies and a heat pump will result in a high level of energy autonomy. The total power consumed by the building represents 29 kWh/m².
Click above for larger image
The building’s envelope
To give the impression of a lightweight building in movement, we proposed incorporating stainless steel studs into the earth-coloured concrete cladding. This solution had the effect of blurring the building’s limits and reflecting the surrounding colours and changing seasons. The envelope has a very high performance resulting from the materials employed and the technology used for attaching the concrete facing (reduced thermal bridges). The combination of two layers of concrete (structure + facing) and insulation (30 cm) ensures that the building has a high level of inertia favouring comfort during the summer and reduces cooling requirements.
Click above for larger image
The facade
The elevations will incorporate a total of 120,000 stainless steel studs. Stainless steel studs (7 cm diameter and 1 mm thick) will be incorporated into the formwork during the casting of the integrally coloured prefabricated concrete elevation panels. The panels will be 15.65 m high and either 2.26 m or 2.33 m wide depending on whether they are on the long or short side of the building. The 8 cm thick panels will be reinforced with concrete ribbing (+ 7 cm). The complex will be suspended from reinforced concrete walls and held in position using distancing jacks. The elevations will have a total thickness of 68 cm. The facade’s building process was the subject of a patent.
Click above for larger image
Technical Information
Client: EDF
Location: Bure-Saudron / France
Budget: € 10,1M excl. VAT
Click above for larger image
Site Area: 3.30 hectares
Built UP Area: 6800 m²
Competition: 2008
Completion: 2011
Team: LAN Architecture (lead architect), Franck Boutté (HEQ consultant), Batiserf Ingénierie (structure), Michel Forgue (surveyor), Base (landscape architects), LBE (utilities)
Project Manager: Christophe Leblond
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| House 77 by dIONISO LAB | Waste-to-Energy Plant by BIG | Football Training Centre Soweto by RUFproject |
If you haven’t heard, seen or tasted, know that the streets of New York are now much more friendly, inviting and architecturally-saavy these days, thanks to the very-welcomed arrival of Coolhaus, the world’s only architecture-themed ice cream truck company. Long a favorite of the Los Angeles set, the company branched out into Austin, TX last year and has now finally made their trek to the other coast, bringing with them their all-natural, handmade ice cream and creations like the Mies Vanilla Rohe (Vanilla ice cream + Chocolate Chip Cookie) and the Frank Berry (Strawberry ice cream + Snickerdoodle cookie). After a slight delay (their blog originally stated they’d be running on the week of April 15th), Coolhaus started roaming the streets of New York last week. So keep an eye out and keep checking their Twitter feed for hints on where they’ll show up next. And for those back in the original home of the company, they’ve announced that their long-awaited Los Angeles storefront, will hopefully be opening this July. Here’s a great profile of the Coolhaus ladies, as shot and interviewed by our former co-editor, and foremost iced-treat aficionado, Alissa Walker:
Would now be a good time to mention Chicago’s burgeoning gourmet food truck scene? It gets warm here too. And we like ice cream also. Promise.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
This 436 room hotel situated next to Malpensa Airport, Milan, has a rounded shell cut into seven bays, designed by Italian firm King Roselli Architetti.
The Sheraton Milan Malpensa Airport Hotel & Conference Centre has a continuous fibreglass skin exterior which is wrapped around a series of steel arches to give the building its curved shape.
Hotel windows face out from the recessed openings, avoiding any direct views into the rooms from the adjacent airport.
Internally the hotel lobby is defined by a woven ceiling, which is reflected in the polished terrazzo floor.
Exterior photography is by Santi Caleca.
More stories about hotels on Dezeen »
Here is some information from King Roselli Architetti:
King Roselli Architetti
The Sheraton Milan Malpensa Airport Hotel & Conference Centre- 2005-2010.
Design for architectural exteriors of hotel at Malpensa Airport (Milan, Italy).
We were commissioned to design the exteriors of this large hotel in front of Malpensa International Airport as a result of our competition winning entry for the overall design of the building. Despite its size (420m long, 64m wide, 21m high) the building was conceived as a design object. Partly because Milan is Italy’s design capital, and partly because we were interested in investigating the technical and architectural properties of a skin or membrane to be perceived dynamically as façade not only on its four sides but also the roof- visible from the access road to the airport complex.
The hotel itself is set on an existing base consisting of a huge car park over the railway that passes underground. The hotel has 436 rooms, a conference centre, a spa accessible directly from the airport via an existing connecting bridge over the surrounding ring road.
Membrane
We were looking for a seamless shell to fold around the functional volumes of the buildings. After researching and detailing a number of alternatives- titanium zinc sheeting, Corian and similar solid surfacing, sprayed polyurethane damp-proof membranes, and waterproof concrete-resin based finishes- we finally opted for pultruded fibreglass panels. Pultrusion is a manufacturing process combining extrusion and pulling fibreglass through a die that can provide panels up to 1400mm wide and almost infinite lengths- we needed lengths of up to 25 meters. Aside from the lengths of the panels, the material has a series of qualities highly suitable for building: it is light weight, elastic, very stable in extreme temperatures (-20°C to +50°C), fireproof and waterproof. Reduced costs and construction times coupled with the inherent qualities and finish of the material have proved to be decisive in achieving the desired result in this project. This material is more often used for industrial products and so an enormous experience of precision detailing to tight tolerances has been accumulated over the years which came in very useful in the detail design of the membrane.
The shell is curved around a subframe of pultruded structural profiles and steel arches, wrapping the entire length of each bay, or module of the hotel in a smooth, continuous skin. The length of the hotel comprises seven bays separated by courtyards, with the curved façades facing the airport, and the rooms looking out on the courtyards. The almost flat roof, is treated as a façade to be seen from the airport, with openings onto terraces, light-wells or interior courts. The plant extracts and ventilation “breath” through vents twisted out of the roof membrane.
Guest Room Blocks
The layout of the rooms are organised around these courtyards which give a bar-code form to the plan and avoid a direct view from the airport into guest rooms. The western face of the hotel is left open to emphasis the horizontality of the volume with shallow water pools set into the lower level at the ends.
Grille
The car park is to be clad with a grille open for natural ventilation but opaque from the outside, to create a visually solid base the entire length of the building.
Façade
On the open (west) side these blocks of rooms articulate the façade in an irregular sequence of solid and void. The solids in turn are articulated by a series of thick sculptural PVC blackout curtains which give both depth and dynamic to the overall elevation. The folded shell alternates with the glass transparency of the enclosed volumes in which the reflective curtains mirror the external lighting conditions to produce a building that is constantly changing aspect. Though normally considered an item of interior design, the black-out curtains were seen as an integral part of the façade from an early stage. The regularity on the mullion and transom grid is syncopated by the irregularity of the curtains seen through the extra-clear glass.
Dynamic
The movement of people as they arrive and leave the airport, the tension created between solid and void, curved and straight line, the play of light reflected off and through the building, provide a variation of views and give a dynamic to the architecture that were looking for.
Escalator connection between ground and main floor lobbies
The escalator block was also considered as an element of the architectural volume rather than an aspect of interior design. The central portion of the whole building needed a visual and volumetric connection between the ground floor entrances, from/to the railway and the main car park to the west, and the main entry lobby from the airport 9,61m above. This is achieved by taking the lower edge (at +6,25m) of the shell enveloping the whole building and pulling a section of it down to the ground (at -3,30m) at though it were elastic. The volume created contains the escalator block. From the inside the escalators catapult the visitor to the first main level of the hotel opening into a full height void topped by large light-well. From the outside the volume strongly signals the western entrance to the building with connections to the railway below, the airport behind-on axis, and the hotel above.
Tensile Structures
Between each block of rooms the emergency staircases, also seen from the airport side through the transparent corridor links, will be clad in a tensile structure (to be built in the coming months). Stretching over the staircase and between the blocks, this essential component completing the design of the western façade with its sculptural organic form, bonds the parts together and gives a tension to the overall composition.
Building as large scale Product Design
The perception of the building, often seen as a whole despite its length, held together in a seamless shell reinforces the idea of it as a piece of product design on an urban scale.
Interiors
About half-way through the design of the building exteriors we were asked by Starwood (Sheraton) to design the main entrance spaces of the hotel. All other interiors (guest rooms, conference centre, restaurants) were designed by Saporiti Design Hotel.
Ground Floor Lobby (-3,36m)
The ground floor lobby main space is defined by a giant trellis false ceiling. A back-drop of bamboo canes behind a translucent film on both sides provide back-lighting to the Sheraton Link and sitting areas. The dark reflective floor in venetian terrazzo reflecting the ceiling and light walls is plied over the wood volume of the reception desk. Another example of surfaces, be they interior or exterior, folded to define a space.
First Floor Lobby (+6,25m)
The space connects all three levels of the hotel via the escalator block down to the ground floor entrance and the false ceiling originating at the top floor level and serves as the conference centre reception.
Club Lounge (+14,25m)
The Club Lounge is situated on the upper level of the hotel with a spectacular view of Monte Rosa. The warm tones of wood and gold, purple and violet of the furnishing contrast of white and reflective surfaces of the exterior structure.
Client: DEC
Area: 50.000 m2
Guest Rooms:436
Budget: 64m euro
Credits
design: King Roselli Architetti
project leader: Riccardo Roselli
project architect: Arianna Nobile
interior design: Daniele Del Prete
design team: Andrea Ricci, Mario Augusti, Katia Scarioni, Giandomenico Florio, Fabrizio Bonatti
landscape: Dana Vocino
consultant: Federica Pistola, Andrea Imbrenda
general contractor: DEC Spa Gruppo De Gennaro
fiberglass facade: P.C.R. Progettazione Costruzione Ricerca
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| Hilton Pattaya Hotel by Department of Architecture | The Yas Hotel by Asymptote | Rødovre Skyscraper by MVRDV and ADEPT |
Surveying the design details of the world’s newest notorious hideout
Like any media-obsessed normal person, we’ve been riveted to the coverage surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and especially interested in the descriptions of whereabouts that overnight went from “cave” to “McMansion.” Curious about what exactly goes into sheltering an international terrorist for six years, we focused on what architectural details have surfaced so far. In other words, what kind of a fortified compound does a million bucks get you in the “affluent suburb” of Abbottabad, Pakistan?
Built in 2005 and described by local residents as the “Waziristan Mansion,” the three-story house looms eight times larger than neighboring buildings and was one the first shocking clues indicating that the place was significant to the mission.
Concrete retaining walls topped with barbed wire surround the building, reach 18 feet on the southeastern side of the compound, and range 10-12 feet high on remaining sides. Anyone trying to get past the towering walls would also face reported armed guards and numerous security cameras.
Located at the end of a narrow pathway, opaque windows obstruct the view inside from onlookers and a seven-foot-tall privacy wall hides anyone up to, oh about 6’4″.
The courier that led the U.S. to the location was the sole way Osama communicated with the outside world; the compound had no telephone or Internet connections.
Describing it as “surprisingly permanent and surpassingly Urban,” LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne ranks Osama’s crib up there with Saddam’s as one of the “most notorious examples of hideout architecture in recent memory.”
via the New York Times and DailyMail
Images from top to bottom: European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), Diagram by NYT, EPA, EPA, AFP/Getty Images, T.Mughal/EPA
Edited by Graham Hiemstra, Ami Kealoha and Tim Yu
Située à Shimura au Japon, Emmanuelle Moureaux a encore une fois repensé le design intérieur et extérieur de l’architecture Sugamo Shinkin Bank. En jouant sur les couleurs de l’arc-en-ciel en couches, ce bâtiment donne un aspect rafraîchissant grâce à des espaces intelligemment pensés.
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Dezeen Screen: here’s the first of four previously unpublished movies made by Dezeen in December 2009 at the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture. Watch the movie »
Architect David Chipperfield has released images of the completed seafront Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate composed of six identical volumes with an acid-etched glass skin.
The gallery, which Dezeen showed designs for back in October, is intended to withstand the corrosive effects of the seaside environment, including the occasional high wave.
The ground floor accommodates a reception area, event space and cafe while the exhibition spaces are on the first floor, benefitting from natural north light.
The gallery will have no permanent collection, but will feature temporary exhibitions combining historic and contemporary works, with a focus on the work of artist JMW Turner (1775-1851).
Photography is by Richard Bryant.
More projects by David Chipperfield on Dezeen »
More stories about galleries on Dezeen »
Here are some more details from the gallery:
Turner Contemporary opens 16 April 2011
Margate’s new Turner Contemporary gallery, one of the largest and most important spaces for art outside London, opens to the public on Saturday 16 April 2011.
The gallery will be opened by one of Margate’s most famous residents, Tracey Emin, with the musician Jools Holland and a group of local schoolchildren.
Designed by internationally acclaimed architect, David Chipperfield, winner of 2007 RIBA Stirling Prize and RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, the opening of the new gallery is one of the most anticipated cultural events of 2011.
Victoria Pomery, Director, Turner Contemporary said:
“I am thrilled to be opening the gallery on 16 April. It will be a momentous day for both Turner Contemporary and Margate and the moment we open the doors and see visitors entering this fantastic new building will be very special.”
Taking inspiration from Britain’s best-known painter, JMW Turner who was a regular visitor to Margate throughout his life, the gallery is situated on the sea front on the site of a guesthouse frequented by the artist. To mark this connection there will always be works by Turner on display in the gallery.
John Kampfner, Chair, Turner Contemporary said: “The opening of Turner Contemporary marks the start of an extraordinary opportunity for Margate and Thanet to become one of the UK’s most compelling culture and tourism destinations. I would like to pay tribute to Kent County Council and our other partners for delivering this outstanding building on time and on budget.”
Turner Contemporary’s exhibitions programme shows a unique combination of contemporary art alongside historical work, demonstrating a particular focus on the art, thought and the legacy of JMW Turner.
The opening show Revealed: Turner Contemporary Opens explores the themes of imagination, discovery, wonder and the creative spirit. Centred on JMW Turner’s extraordinary but little-known painting The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains, in the Island of St Vincent, at Midnight, on the 30th of April, 1812, from a Sketch Taken at the Time by Hugh P. Keane, Esqre 1815, on loan from Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool, the exhibition will feature new commissions by Daniel Buren, Russell Crotty, Ellen Harvey and Conrad Shawcross, together with selected works by Teresita Fernández and Douglas Gordon.
The opening exhibition will be followed by:
Mike Hill, Cabinet Member for Community Services, said: ”I have been involved since the very beginning and I am immensely proud of the hard work of so many people who have worked tirelessly to reach the opening day.
It is a magnificent building which will provide many different opportunities for local people and visitors from far and wide, to come and enjoy what is on offer and help build the local economy of Margate and East Kent.”
Sally Abbott, Regional Director, South East, Arts Council England, said: “We’re proud to support Turner Contemporary, and we’re looking forward to the year ahead with its programme of high quality international contemporary art. Turner Contemporary will be integral to local life and vital to regeneration, with long lasting benefits for the community. Great art enriches lives, and this gallery will help more people experience and be inspired by the arts.”
Pam Alexander, Chief Executive of the South East England Development Agency and Chair of the Margate Renewal Partnership, said: ”The opening of Turner Contemporary is a huge step into the future for Margate. As an international venue, it will bring an exciting buzz to the town and create new opportunities for the people of Margate and the local economy. With the recent letting of the former M&S building in the town centre and the plans for Dreamland, it is a landmark in our work to regenerate and revitalise Margate. The project has been a great example of collaboration and we hope it will demonstrate how the arts and culture can stimulate regeneration, and we are proud our £4m investment has supported the creation of this world class Gallery.”
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| Museum Folkwang by David Chipperfield | Nottingham Contemporary by Caruso St John Architects | Galeria Adriana Varejão by Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez |
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