Hoskins’ remodelling of Aberdeen Art Gallery offers a visual feast, improving the displays, views of the city and the building’s contribution to the streetscape

Granite. There’s no avoiding it — attempts to discuss Aberdeen or its buildings without reference to the hard grey stone and its usage in the city are seemingly hopeless; the uniformity, the blankness, the austerity of detail enlivened by the sparkle; the clichés that begin any article on the city seem to be inevitable regardless of subject. The futility of dodging mention of the stuff becomes even more pronounced in relation to the Aberdeen Art Gallery; a building (or rather building and multiple extensions) originally financed and supplied by granite magnate Alexander MacDonald while being designed by that master of granite architecture, Alexander Marshall Mackenzie: the gallery exterior of 1885 revels in the imperviousness of the material, its clarity and most of all in its flatness. What is much less remarked upon in the physical make up of this city are the copper roofs on many of its larger buildings — for all its proximity to the highlands there is much less topographical relief in Aberdeen compared to the other east coast cities of Edinburgh and Dundee — and as a result without many public elevated views the ‘copperness’ of rooftop civic Aberdeen usually goes unremarked. With the recent redevelopment of the Gallery by Hoskins Architects however this impression may begin to shift.

Built directly on top of the granite wall head the new roof top extension to the gallery is only the most visible part of an extensive programme of repair and reorganisation undertaken by the architects to the Category A Listed building. A combination of naturally oxidising copper scallops jointed by glittering red-orange stainless-steel strips forms a sheer wall to the rooftop boundary with Robert Gordon’s College to the east before darting in and out along the principle Schoolhill elevation to the south and then onto the west where it genuflects away from the (copper) dome on the Remembrance Hall, also a part of the Art Gallery complex. The extension has an austere allure to it — while the vogueish fluting of the surface is shared with some other arts buildings of the last few decades, the effect of the extension on the street is very satisfying — the darting plan always reverts to the corner points of the original gallery building and serves to underline rather than contradict the composition of what is otherwise an accumulation of buildings (albeit by a single architect) while taking its place amongst the copper domes and spires of its near neighbours. With few exceptions window and ventilation apertures are set back so as not to interrupt the rhythm of vertical strips; with oblique views along Schoolhill being both the most important and the most commonly experienced the depth of relief in the surface of the extension has been well judged to complement the granite façade below; not too much so as to detract, but equally not falling into the more likely trap (given the circumstances) of being too flat. Its appearance against the northern sky, certainly with the low sun at this time of year, brings its own delight complementary to the flecks of mica in the ashlar walls.

Apart from the new extension the public exterior of the gallery has barely been touched, such is the tendency to cleanliness and the durability of the masonry. By contrast the same cannot be said of the interior of the gallery where the architects have reconfigured the plan in sometimes subtle and sometimes radical fashion. Welcome as the understated glamour of the new exterior addition is to the city, it is in the organisational configuration of the gallery where the architects have really done Aberdonians a service.   

The impact of the reorganisation is apparent the moment you enter the building: the formerly unprepossessing reception and its unpromising café have been cleared away to form a simple and legible entrance area, light, cleanly detailed and appropriately scaled to the function of a gallery in this compact city with clear connections through to the internal sculpture court and beyond. Passing through newly exposed columns into the sculpture court the first consequences of the new rooftop extension are immediately apparent — an abundance of natural light and an enjoyable dialogue between the granite and plaster neo-classicism and the simple glass balustraded hoop where the new gallery addition starts on the second floor above: the relative drama of the aperture above you might be overwhelming for the modestly scaled space were it not for the simplicity of the geometry and the extension of the visual field through to adjacent galleries — the building opens up to you laterally in this space and so the additional volume above you feels airy. There is also much visual enjoyment to be had from the polychromatic columns to the peristyle — a witty 1:1 sample pack from the original granite supplier patron of the gallery.  

Circulation, both new and reinstated to the original Alexander Marshall Mackenzie plan, is immediately comprehensible from the sculpture court where the axis of the original plan has been developed to create connections between the original building and the two subsequent extensions to the west; the Remembrance Hall and Cowdray Hall; as well as with the new rooftop extension. In each instance these connections are framed by a dark grey timber portal — a motif that is replicated across all parts of the gallery, old and new, serving to unify the experience. To the west of the sculpture court the Remembrance Hall has also been brought into the functional organisation of the gallery and just as above the sculpture court a glazed hoop provides efficient connection at the upper level. Although there are a range of spaces in terms of period and typology the enjoyable jolts of difference encountered in the building are all in relation to space and light, not style or material. The most notable deployment of the grey timber portal is the large new stairway — cleaved through the plan at the back of the sculpture court, visible from the main entrance and reinforcing the sense of openness and legibility.  

The gallery spaces themselves are appropriately restrained throughout. While the current exhibition design is often distracting (there are some rooms that would benefit from much less ‘interpretation’) in terms of the architecture they are well configured for the display of art; especially paintings; the consequence of a productive discussion between architect and client. Interestingly the client team was composed of the gallery’s own curatorial staff rather than external PM or facilities management personnel — according to the architect this led to an 'absolutely joyous' process and it would appear to show: this is now a building that does justice to the outstanding quality of the collection it contains. 

At the top of the building the new rooftop extension provides a standalone gallery for temporary shows as well as a generous exhibition space wrapped around the void to the sculpture court below. The darting plan creates external pockets between the envelope of the new addition and the roofline of the original building — one looking down the length of Belmont Street and the other providing a valuable terrace adjacent to the dome of Remembrance Hall. These external spaces combined with controlled views from the temporary exhibition space generously expand the opportunity for the enjoyment of the building and provide new perspectives on the city — helping to reveal its copper pinnacles, cupolas and domes. 

Reflecting the priorities of the original benefactors of the gallery when it was established in 1873 the collection of the Aberdeen Art Gallery has focussed predominantly on contemporary art — that is work by living artists — over the course of nearly a century and a half the gallery has built up a fascinatingly eclectic but nevertheless internationally significant collection of work. Despite this, growing up on nearby Deeside in the 1980’s I can only recall with clarity the collection of Joseph Farquharson paintings from that same rural hinterland; soft focus sheep in the snow — frozen mutton. Visits to the gallery were marked by an underwhelming experience of the building and the wholly inaccurate impression that the collection seemed modest — the range and depth was never fully apparent. The refurbishment by Hoskins Architects has performed a significant corrective and I wonder for how many others it will have the same effect? 

CREDITS

Client Aberdeen City Council

Architect Hoskins Architects

Conservation architect/heritageAndrew PK Wright

Structural and services engineer Buro Happold

Quantity surveyor and CDM co-ordinator AECOM

Project manager Faithful and Gould

Main contractor McLoughlin and Harvey

Exhibition designer Studioarc

Lighting designer Speirs & Major