A London gallery built to house the private art collection of artist Damien Hirst has won the RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture 2016.
Newport Street Gallery won the prestigious prize for architecture for the UK’s best new building.
Designed by architects Caruso St John, the gallery spans 37,000 square feet and includes six exhibition spaces – one with a ceiling height of eleven metres – split over two levels. The architects converted a street of listed industrial buildings in south London into the free public gallery to house Hirst’s private art collection, which includes works by Tracey Emin and Pablo Picasso. They were honoured at a special ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects on Thursday evening.
It is the first time the architects have taken home the prize, despite having been shortlisted twice before for Brick House in west London in 2006 and the New Art Gallery in Walsall in 2000.
The construction of the gallery involved the transformation of a street facing a railway line in Vauxhall. Three listed Victorian industrial buildings, formerly carpentry and scenery painting workshops for West End theatres were remodelled and are flanked at either end by entirely new buildings; one with a striking, spiky saw-tooth roof.
The new additions have a specially-created hard pale red brick finish to closely reference the original buildings; while a huge LED panel on the railway façade encourages passing train commuters to visit. The ground and upper floors within the interconnected five buildings are continuous, with new spiral staircases on their side, to create flexible spaces able to accommodate everything from individual works to larger shows.
