This is a marvellous conversion hitting all the right notes. Much of this is down to a sensitivity toward the characteristics of the existing, former mattress-making warehouse and knowing just where to intervene and where to hold back. The retained roof is terrific. (Also see Allies & Morrison’s work at Chelsea Art College for a comparison, of sorts.) Oh, and you might enjoy the art they show. The architects say: “The conversion […] was undertaken in two stages — initially, we stripped out the building for the inaugural exhibition Raw. During this period, working with a group of the gallery’s artists and through the use of a model and drawings, we developed the final scheme. The brief was formed to make two separate galleries. The ground floor gallery would be the ‘white box’ fully serviced with power and data to accommodate painting, photography, video and film works and a smaller space where more intimate works can be shown. Also on the ground floor is the project room and storage space with the office discreetly at the rear with access to the canal waterside. On the upper floor we left the structure and roof structure of the building exposed giving the space a less finished feel not as formal as the lower gallery allowing for large sculptures and installations”. Also see the Gagosian, p.98.
Incidentally, it is worth noting that architects currently have a problematic relation with art and artists. Any self-respecting work of any scale can hardly do without an artist on board the project. This often has self-evident benefits. However, placed in the context of an historical fragmentation of the architect’s role and a divestment of all numerical-based skills which leaves their coreskill and project role somewhat ambiguous, architects might be playing a dangerous game. Having an artist on board may be flattering to them and the client, ostensibly underscoring urbane good taste and judgement, but it simultaneously suggests the architect is without sufficient capacity to exercise aesthetic judgement and is in danger of effecting an impression contrary to that intended.
Since architecture as an aesthetically-oriented vocation is sometimes the principal ‘added value’ an architect brings to a project, there is an argument that the prudent practitioner must surely be wary in posing as ‘artist’ rather than elevating and articulating the unique values of being ‘an architect’.