Inclusion is a central principle of Ruff Architects’ Barbican Art Gallery renovation, finds Rachael Marshall

Words
Rachael Marshall
Photos
Rob Parrish

What is a gallery but an empty receptacle; a blank canvas against which to view unblanked canvases? It can be a place that remains static in physical form, but also lend itself to additions and insertions depending on the works it hosts at a particular time. A gallery is also a complex thing whose environment is often adjusted to meet the climatic and visual needs of delicate and old inanimate objects as well as its human visitors.

How then does a central London gallery in the Grade-II-listed Barbican Centre, with ambitious plans for future growth, adapt to the changing expectations of the public with minimal disruption and a very tight window between shows?

Ruff Architects and a multi-disciplinary team took up the challenge after winning the City of London Corporation’s public tender for the £650,000 project. Paul Ruff knew the building and client well as he was project architect for cinemas 2 and 3 in AHMM’s 2008 renovation of the Barbican. This must have contributed to the smooth delivery of major interventions during the fast 12-week construction period.

The entrance to the Barbican Gallery is on the third floor of the centre, adjacent to the Lakeside Terrace. The large, double-height space is characterised by deep bays between enormous bush-hammered concrete columns. Inside the entrance, the ticket counter and gift shop are on the left and a wide stair to the upper level is ahead.

Between these two elements the floor slopes up and into one of the enormous concrete columns, where a new passenger lift connects the two levels. The first-floor describes a clear route past the bays on the upper level and returns to the head of the main stair and the new lift on a connecting, central, bridge. Among the most conspicuous changes is the reinstatement of windows along the north and south elevations, a feature that took me by surprise, having visited the gallery many times and not known of their existence. This was proposed in David Chipperfield Architects’ design for the inaugural exhibition, and incorporated into the refurbishment project.

The architect knew that accessibility had to be improved, and also that a Grade-II listed status does not prevent improvements being made – a message that I am keen to reinforce in my own work as an access and inclusive design consultant. The Barbican Gallery’s history of refurbishments and alterations illustrates advancements in thinking about inclusion, as well as the conservation and display of art and attitudes to buildings of heritage value. AHMM’s refurbishment of just over a decade ago separated the previously open-plan gallery from the library and foyer of the Arts Centre to enable a controlled environment for artworks.

The creation of an inclusive – not just ‘accessible’ – visitor experience was at the heart of the most recent transformation, and reflects a more widespread understanding that design for inclusion and listed status are not incompatible. Previously, a platform lift might have ticked a box of accessibility for listed buildings (and if no lift was possible, disabled people who could not use steps could get a sense of what they were missing on other levels), but this attitude has thankfully matured into a more holistic consideration of inclusive access – a point illustrated brilliantly by current renovations at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk. There, access to a high-level walkway on top of the curtain wall is currently a pair of steep spiral stone stairs within towers, but one of those towers is intended to house a passenger lift, giving step-free access to all levels of the castle including a new rooftop terrace.

Back at the Barbican Gallery, it was a priority to replace a lift that was out of sequence with the visitor flow and too small to provide step-free access to the upper level for all wheelchair users, who instead followed an alternative route via level four. Several options were considered, including a new lift and stair on the outside of the building. However, the inside of one of the massive concrete columns proved to be the best option, being almost adjacent to the ticket desk and shop, visible from the entrance and close to the main stair to the upper level.

Inserting the lift into the column previously used for storage was perhaps not the most straightforward option, but works well in uniting the stepped and step-free visitor experiences as closely as possible. (Having made this connection, Framlingham Castle and the Barbican Gallery will forever be architecturally twinned for me).

Two shows have been mounted at the gallery since the refurbishment, and demonstrate the flexibility of the transformation. It re-opened with the exuberantly expressionist works of Lee Krasner, shown in the building at its most open. In contrast, ‘Into the Night: Cabarets & Clubs in Modern Art’ introduced a series of room reconstructions including 1920s club L’Aubette and Vienna’s Cabaret Fledermaus bar, which hosted cocktail and live jazz evenings throughout the show’s duration, and evidence of the building fabric – and recent interventions – was much less in evidence.

Buildings must adapt to all sorts of societal and economic pressures, and Ruff Architects’ treatment of the Barbican Gallery shows that putting accessibility first is key to a successful change, even in a listed building.

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