The New Art Gallery :: Walsall

Introduction

Garman Ryan Collection

Discovery Gallery

Permanent Collection

Architecture: :
The home of the collection

Architecture : : The home of the collection

The Building
The architects Peter St John and Adam Caruso were selected following an open international competition. Construction of The New Art Gallery Walsall started in January 1997 and on completion in September 1999 the gallery was the largest built work of any British architect under 40 years of age.

Attracted by the range of spatial conditions, particularly the Garman Ryan Collections requirements, the architects created a big house both accessible and intimate. Their main challenge was to design galleries that were not general and top lit, but spaces on a domestic scale that people could engage with. The relationship between building and ordinary life remains central to their concerns.

Clad in pale terracotta tile the 4500 sqm building's facade with its 100 ft tower is randomly patterned with windows ranging in size from postcard to cinemascope. The Gallery's own shop window on the ground floor - a glazed installation space with a large window faces out towards the shopping street. The building consists of six interconnected floors, each with their own character and function. An innovative and flexible approach to the structure and construction of the building has resulted in a column free building with a cantilever below the heaviest and tallest part of the building (front entrance and plant room). The rooms within are specifically tailored for the are they are intended to house: an intimate setting was created for the Garman Ryan Collection on the first and second floors, which contrast sharply with the 6 metre high walls and clerestory lighting in the temporary exhibition spaces on the third floor. Douglas Fir wood is used extensively within the structure while the use of concrete, as a feature is unusual, with concrete joists exposed in many rooms with board-marked walls in many areas particularly the staircase.

The Architects
Adam Caruso and Peter St John have become two of Britain's most controversial young architects, outspoken, anti-establishment and described as the duo most commercial firms love to hate. Caruso St John won the commission to design The New Art Gallery Walsall in 1996, in open competition.

The gallery is their largest built work and to date the largest built work of any architect under 40 in Britain. Their growing reputation in public projects has put Caruso St John firmly on the architectural map.

Gallery Square
The square surrounding The New Art Gallery Walsall was created by British artist Richard Wentworth and landscape architects Lynn Kinnear Associates. Wentworth wanted to create something that would be open to change as opposed to a permanent artwork that could date quickly. They proposed something bold, unique and plain speaking which would embrace the surrounding pedestrian area and at the same time welcome the canal back into the town centre.

In and around
the Gallery

Italian (Central) - Madonna and Child

New Zealand - Maori Greenstone Tiki