RIBA Stirling Prize 2016

Caruso St John’s Newport Street Gallery won the 2016 RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK’s building of the year. The project is a conversion and transformation of a street, facing a railway line in Vauxhall, south London, into a free public gallery for artist Damien Hirst’s private art collection. 

Three listed Victorian industrial buildings, formerly carpentry and scenery painting workshops for West End theatres, have been remodelled and flanked at either end by entirely new buildings; one with 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 facade 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.

The simple and logical circulation creates a promenade route that playfully connects the ground and first floor of the building, and encompasses a fine bar. But the project goes beyond the typical institutional model by placing the shop outside, along the street. This lends urbanity to a quiet back street as well as increasing the sense of calm and space in the gallery itself.

Newport Street Gallery, Vauxhall, London
Program: renovation and exhibition space
Architects: Caruso St. John
Main contractor: Walter Lilly
Structural engineering: Alan Baxter & Associates Llp
M&E engineering: Max Fordham Llp
Quantity surveyor: Jackson Coles
Project management: Jackson Coles
Access consultant: David Bonnett Associates
Conservation: Alan Baxter & Associates Llp
Internal area: 3,386 sqm
Completion: 2015