Tate Gallery, St.Ives

A gallery where the building has proved as great a visitor attraction as the art that it exhibits. The site was a restricted, steeply sloping, ex gas-works site. This plot of land in a residential area rose 12 metres from front to back and was hemmed in by a hotel and blocks of flats. A less promising site for an award-winning project would be hard to imagine.

The required simplicity of construction led to the use of reinforced masonry block walls and precast concrete floors to provide access to the five separate galleries. All These are of different shapes and height and are arranged around a central courtyard. The impressive entrance loggia is constructed in reinforced concrete. All the components were carefully detailed to provide the robust and waterproof construction, crucial when works of art need protecting. Great attention was also needed at roof level as each gallery’s roof is designed to suit its architectural form. The result is a mixture of flat roofs and slate-covered pitched and curved roofs, which had to be detailed to provide an attractive but complex entity.