Tate Harmer overhaul the Brunel Museum

London-based architects Tate Harmer are behind the recent renovation works to the Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe.

(Image credit: Raftery and Lowe)

last updated 23 July 2022

London architects Tate Harmer have pulled off an ingenious feat: fitting a 12-tonne staircase through a 1.4m-wide doorway. The freestanding staircase takes visitors down to the Brunel Museum in East London's Rotherhithe and into a 50ft-deep shaft or chamber, which opens this week as an unconventional performance space.

The Grade II* listed shaft was built by engineering father-son partnership Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in 1843 and leads to the world's first underwater tunnel, making it 'the birthplace of the mass urban transport', says museum director Robert Hulse. Now, just 5m below the chamber's floor, London Overground trains regularly rumble by.

The staircase is supported by three columns and has a viewing platform at ground level, as well as two mini landings where it changes direction. Its 1,000 components, including the bright red handrail and the oak treads, were transported by crane through a new doorway at ground level, and assembled in the shaft.

The architects – who created TREExOFFICE, a pop-up workspace wrapped around a tree trunk for last year's London Design Festival – powder-coated the steel structure in black. This was in reference to the steam trains that once used the tunnel, and to help it blend in with the chamber's 1.5m-thick solid brick walls.

After some debate, Harmer and his team decided to leave the walls as they were, rather than smarten them up or try to return them to their earlier condition. 'The power of the space comes from the patina on the walls,' says Tate Harmer partner Jerry Tate. This patina includes the outline of a former staircase snaking up the brick, the soot, the peeling paint and the myriad dangling cobwebs. Industrial chic is an understatement.

The events programme kicks off tomorrow (16 April) with a concert performed on a grand piano with backing from a string quartet.

The museum is located within Brunel’s Thames Tunnel Engine House, which is itself a nationally important ’Scheduled Monument’.

The Tate Harmer project includes the introduction of a new Grand Entrance Hall.

A key feature in the new design is a striking metal staircase leading visitors through the museum’s listed surrounds.

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Tate Harmer Architects website

ADDRESS

Brunel Museum
Railway Avenue
London, SE16 4LF

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Clare Dowdy is a London-based freelance design and architecture journalist who has written for titles including Wallpaper*, BBC, Monocle and the Financial Times. She’s the author of ‘Made In London: From Workshops to Factories’ and co-author of ‘Made in Ibiza: A Journey into the Creative Heart of the White Island’.

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