Street life: Caruso St John create an urban composition for Damien Hirst’s new gallery
![the Newport Street Gallery](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/8D32LxJDDZcAyYHHr2xZdL-415-80.jpg)
Vauxhall may not be the most obvious place for an ambitious art complex, yet this is indeed where the new gallery for Damien Hirst's collection can be found, quietly nestled behind the train track and arches in South London, occupying almost half of the small street.
Designed by London-based Caruso St John - of New Art Gallery Walsall and Tate Britain Milbank Project fame - Newport Street Gallery is an intriguing collage of five buildings. Each holds its distinct façade, yet the composition forms a coherent whole - the architects treated it as a unified complex, working with material, such as brick colours, that fitted well together. 'They've approached the project with great sensitivity and vision,' says the gallery's curator, Hugh Allan.
At 37,000 sq ft, the gallery is expansive, its display rooms specifically spanning two levels and four of the five buildings. Three of them were existing structures, listed old scenery painting studios that were purpose built in 1913, which the architects refurbished for the new gallery's needs. They used to be dramatic, single-height spaces and after Caruso St John's intervention, while the space is now divided into two levels, a subtle drama remains, with tall ceilings and light flooding in from large openings on the sides.
'The [original] spaces were too big to be used as galleries,' explains Peter St John. 'Now, there is a lot of flexibility in the scale and arrangement of the galleries.' These historical buildings are book-ended by two new builds - a striking saw-tooth, corner one, which marks the complex's main entrance and way to the café, and a slim structure at the end of the row, housing the gallery's office space and dedicated shop.
Three sculptural, white engineering brick staircases connect the different floors and buildings inside, featuring a smooth timber handrail on one side - made at the same German manufacturer Caruso St John used in their Tate Britain project - and a cast concrete one on the other, cleverly appearing to be carved into the wall. 'It is about making stairs more than just being perfunctory and providing a means of escape; they also make the building more expansive and public,' explains St John.
This is certainly a busy week for the East London practice. Their Gagosian Gosvernor Hill project throws open its doors in a couple of days, as does their Liverpool Philharmonic; a sensitive refurbishment and expansion of the 1939 grade II* listed concert hall.
Newport Street Gallery is the first to launch in this series, opening to the public today - although its fittingly pharmacy-themed café and restaurant will not be serving till 2016. Newport Street Gallery's inaugural exhibition will be 'Power Stations', a solo show of work by John Hoyland (1934-2011); the first one since the artist's death.
The gallery opens to the public today and offers ample gallery space. It was designed especially for Hirst's collection.
The project comprises five adjacent buildings with distinct facades, which translate inside to clean, white and flexible spaces for art display
Spanning two levels, the galleries are complemented by a shop, office space and a cafe/restaurant, which will open in 2016
Three main staircases connect the different levels, and become sculptural pieces in themselves
INFORMATION
Newport Street Gallery
Newport St
London SE11 6AJ
Photography: Prudence Cuming Associates, copyright Kioyar Ltd
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
Take off: Mathieu Lehanneur's Olympic Cauldron rises into the Parisian night sky
The Paris 2024 Olympics’ opening ceremony was closed with a soaring cauldron spectacle that will go down in history
By Hugo Macdonald Published
-
Phaidon’s new Graphic Classics is a lavish greatest hits of graphic design
Graphic Classics is a compendium of seven centuries of visual culture, from the everyday and ephemeral to visionary works that reshaped our world
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Birley Chocolate hits the sweet ’n’ chic spot in London’s Chelsea
The new Birley Chocolate shop, a sibling to Birley Bakery, is a confection of colour as delicious as its finely crafted goods
By Melina Keays Published
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at Baltic
Hannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
By Emily Steer Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East Sussex
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
By Mary Cleary Published
-
The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London
Tom of Finland’s homoeroticism meets Beryl Cook’s female-oriented camp as Studio Voltaire unites work by the two artists in a London exhibition
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Zanele Muholi celebrates South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in LA and London
Zanele Muholi's portraits and sculptures are currently on show at Southern Guild Los Angeles and the Tate Modern, London
By Hannah Silver Published