Award / Auszeichnung | 07/2013
RIAI Irish Architecture Awards 2013
Luan Gallery
IE Athlone
Best Cultural Building
Architektur
Projektdaten
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Gebäudetyp:
Museen, Ausstellungsbauten
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Projektgröße:
keine Angabe
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Status:
Realisiert
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Termine:
Baubeginn: 01/2005
Fertigstellung: 01/2012
Projektbeschreibung
The Luan Gallery is Athlone’s new 575m2 museum for contemporary art. It is located on a spectacular site by the town’s historic bridge, castle and the church of St Peter & St Paul on the River Shannon.
The project, which opened in 2012, involved the adaptation of the historic 1897 Father Matthew Hall into a new exhibition gallery, the addition of new wing to provide temporary white box gallery spaces, and linking the two, a glazed promenade gallery overlooking the river.
Originally built to designs by William Tanner the 1897, the Father Mathew Hall was commissioned as a temperance hall. It was hoped through providing a centre offering recreational facilities and a temperance café that workers from the nearby woollen mills would eschew the local bars and remain sober. Records do not testify as to whether this ambition was successful.
Subsequently, the hall became a concert venue, and then in 1947 was handed over to Athlone Town Council, the upper floor becoming the town hall until 1949 when a branch library opened on the ground floor.
In 1980 the entire building was renovated and re-opened as a library, but had been vacant from2004 when the library re-located to the new Civic Centre also designed by Keith Williams Architects.
This project has radically altered the Father Matthew Hall. The accretions added over time have been swept away leaving the core form intact, and the elevations modified by the introduction of new large glazed panels opening up the building to the river and the Shannon Bridge. The new wing has provided contemporary gallery space with black out capabilities to enable multi-use gallery, lecture theatre/ cinema for film exhibitions, meeting space for literature, music, drama workshops, and digital art exhibitions.
The two galleries are linked by a glazed entrance from the main road, and by the cantilevered promenade gallery facing the Shannon. Externally the public river walkway has been widened and extended at towpath level to create a more generous public realm.
The palette of materials for the new gallery wing is limited to limestone and zinc. Limestone as a building material has a history of use in public buildings in Ireland, and here has been laid in random cut horizontal strips of varying widths, smooth for the upper gallery and rough cut for the plinth, asserting the contemporary nature of the new wing. Zinc clad roof lanterns have been set back from the parapet wall to centralise daylight penetrating into the gallery.
The Luan Gallery is the first purpose-built modern visual art gallery in the Irish Midlands, and has beenestablished to promote a dynamic contemporary visual arts programme of bothmajor established and emerging artists, launching with an exhibition co-curated with the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
The Luan is Keith Williams’ third project in Athlone, having earlier completed the Civic Centre 2001-2004 and the town’s Army Memorial in 2008 – 2009.
The project, which opened in 2012, involved the adaptation of the historic 1897 Father Matthew Hall into a new exhibition gallery, the addition of new wing to provide temporary white box gallery spaces, and linking the two, a glazed promenade gallery overlooking the river.
Originally built to designs by William Tanner the 1897, the Father Mathew Hall was commissioned as a temperance hall. It was hoped through providing a centre offering recreational facilities and a temperance café that workers from the nearby woollen mills would eschew the local bars and remain sober. Records do not testify as to whether this ambition was successful.
Subsequently, the hall became a concert venue, and then in 1947 was handed over to Athlone Town Council, the upper floor becoming the town hall until 1949 when a branch library opened on the ground floor.
In 1980 the entire building was renovated and re-opened as a library, but had been vacant from2004 when the library re-located to the new Civic Centre also designed by Keith Williams Architects.
This project has radically altered the Father Matthew Hall. The accretions added over time have been swept away leaving the core form intact, and the elevations modified by the introduction of new large glazed panels opening up the building to the river and the Shannon Bridge. The new wing has provided contemporary gallery space with black out capabilities to enable multi-use gallery, lecture theatre/ cinema for film exhibitions, meeting space for literature, music, drama workshops, and digital art exhibitions.
The two galleries are linked by a glazed entrance from the main road, and by the cantilevered promenade gallery facing the Shannon. Externally the public river walkway has been widened and extended at towpath level to create a more generous public realm.
The palette of materials for the new gallery wing is limited to limestone and zinc. Limestone as a building material has a history of use in public buildings in Ireland, and here has been laid in random cut horizontal strips of varying widths, smooth for the upper gallery and rough cut for the plinth, asserting the contemporary nature of the new wing. Zinc clad roof lanterns have been set back from the parapet wall to centralise daylight penetrating into the gallery.
The Luan Gallery is the first purpose-built modern visual art gallery in the Irish Midlands, and has beenestablished to promote a dynamic contemporary visual arts programme of bothmajor established and emerging artists, launching with an exhibition co-curated with the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
The Luan is Keith Williams’ third project in Athlone, having earlier completed the Civic Centre 2001-2004 and the town’s Army Memorial in 2008 – 2009.