![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/50405.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nIn a leafy suburb of south-east London stands \ufeffDulwich Picture Gallery,\ufeff the UK\u2019s\ufeff first purpose-built public art gallery,\ufeff a quietly radical structure that opened in \ufeff1817\ufeff. Its collection, intended for a national collection of Poland until that country was \ufefftemporarily erased \ufeffby its powerful neighbours, is a treasury of Rembrandts, Poussins, \ufeffRubenses and other greats. Its luminous interiors, where daylight from above is subtly modulated by spare geometric vaults, has been an inspiration to architects of art museums ever since.<\/p>\n
The design of the building, by the brilliant, innovative and somewhat crabby \ufeffSir John Soane,\ufeff includes a \ufeffmausoleum for the Swiss and French art dealers \ufeffwho founded the collection\ufeff; its \ufeffshallow dome was an inspiration for those of the now\ufeff battered K2 and K6 red phone boxes\ufeff that were everyday icons on British high streets. The gallery building is a work of seriousness and an object of reverence. In places, with its largely windowless brown brick walls and austere rebuilding after wartime bomb damage, it is\ufeff a little drab \u2013 a manilla envelope, if a distinguished one, for its gorgeous contents.<\/p>\n
The challenge of the new ArtPlay \ufeffPavilion, the centrepiece of a \ufeff\u00a35m makeover\ufeff of the museum\u2019s grounds, was to create a place in these sober surroundings where under-eights (and sometimes older children) can, through imaginative play, take maximum delight in visual art. Here, child\u2019s play meets high architecture\ufeff, gaudy meets gravity.<\/p>\n
How to make an august institution available to young minds, without talking down? In this task, a team led by the architects Carmody \ufeffGroarke, \ufeffknown for a subtly dramatic museum of boats in Windermere and the temporary\ufeff wrap they put around\ufeff Charles Rennie Mackintosh\u2019s Hill House in Helensburgh, near Glasgow\ufeff, have triumphantly succeeded.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Inside the pavilion is an \u2018eventful array\u2019 of installations<\/p>\n
The pavilion stands in the small park that is part of the gallery\u2019s original concept, open to the public whether or not they\u2019ve come to see art\ufeff \u2013 a nice enough spot but formerly a bit flat and unimaginative. Now, with the \ufefflandscape architect Kim Wilkie, \ufeff\ufeffalmost \ufeffhalf a hectare (about an acre) \ufeffof previously fenced-off ground has been made into the species-rich \ufeffLovington Sculpture Meadow, \ufeffwhich includes a curving, plait-shaped earthwork inspired by \ufeffRembrandt\u2019s Girl at a Wi\ufeffndow \u2013 one of the gallery\u2019s star exhibits\ufeff.<\/p>\n
Along with a new revolving programme of modern artworks, 130 trees have been planted and the crowns of existing ones raised to allow views across the grounds. The scene is richer, more animated and more unified than it was before.<\/p>\n
The pavilion stands at a pivotal point between the meadow and the museum. It is a geometric nugget\ufeff; four-square and single-storey\ufeff, with a big circular window in each wall. Thin-edged metal canopies project from each side, to provide shelter from sun and rain. Its double symmetry is like that of a Palladian villa set in a landscape, or indeed the nearby mausoleum, but it is made more dynamic and less formal by being set at 45 degrees to Soane\u2019s main building. You come across it obliquely, like a bandstand or a kiosk in a park, say the architects.<\/p>\n
It is a thing in itself, detached and proud, but also a device for creating relationships in the surroundings. Its siting and skewed angle mean\ufeff it looks towards, and can be seen from, the main entrance and other key locations. It forms a composition with the nearby \ufeffkeeper\u2019s \ufeffcottage, a modest building of about the same date as the gallery, now extended, refurbished and embellished with yellow awnings to make a canteen for \ufeffschool parties. One of those Soane-inspired phone boxes, relocated, joins the conversation.<\/p>\n
The new work is respectful towards the venerable gallery building itself; complementary but distinctive. It is timber-framed and timber-clad with vertical, rough-surfaced, painted Douglas \ufefffir, which the architects say \ufeffechoes both the brick texture of Soane\u2019s walls and the way they are \u201cmade up of small pieces\u201d. The boards are arranged in five horizontal bands, each projecting slightly beyond the one below, to make an inverted ziggurat. Carmody Groarke play with subtle changes of depth, with incisions in material that catch sharp shadows, which is a version of what Soane did with brick and stone.<\/p>\n
![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/50403.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Sir John Soane\u2019s Dulwich Picture Gallery, which opened in 1817<\/p>\n
Then there are the things the Soane gallery mostly lacks \u2013 windows \u2013 joyously realised in a shape equally fascinating to classical theorists of geometry, as in Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s drawing of a man inscribed in a circle, and small children. From inside the pavilion, they create a sense of looking out on the world from a sheltered space. They bring a more-than-adult scale while also, by coming close to the ground at their lowest point, connecting with that of infants.<\/p>\n
A diagonal roof structure of criss\ufeffcrossing timber beams completes the feeling of benign enclosure, with a glazed opening in its centre that allows more light to descend. An ample room is made, cross-shaped in plan, within which the \ufeffHoLD Art Collective\ufeff have invented an eventful array of installations inspired by the works in the gallery \u2013 a miniature Venetian bridge from a Canaletto, for example, or clouds from a Poussin \u2013 and elements designed to engage all the senses, such as lavender-filled cushions and a panel that vibrates like a waterfall. HoLD\u2019s style is less restrained than Carmody Groarke\u2019s, but the two go well enough together.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the project\u2019s architects and engineers, and the builders 8b\ufeffuild, have quietly but assiduously set about doing the right thing by sustainability and accessibility: a heat pump and solar panels power the gallery campus, there is step-free access throughout, and the pavilion structure is designed so that it can be made of the smaller sizes of timber provided by British trees, avoiding the energy-consuming need to transport the material over long distances.<\/p>\n
This is grown-up architecture\ufeff that works with such things as shadow and reflection, scale, and the real and apparent weight of materials\ufeff; the ways they are put together, the sympathies that can be found between timber, masonry and metal. It pitches itself astutely between monument and garden shed.<\/p>\n
At the same time it finds the sense of play underlying everything on the site, Soane and Rembrandt included, given art and architecture are adult versions of children\u2019s games. And, by gently lightening up the old building\u2019s severity, it takes a bit of the dull out of Dulwich.<\/p>\n
Photographs by Luca Piffaretti<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a leafy suburb of south-east London stands \ufeffDulwich Picture Gallery,\ufeff the UK\u2019s\ufeff first purpose-built public art gallery,\ufeff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-127703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}