{"id":509149,"date":"2026-03-02T09:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/509149\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T09:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:05:11","slug":"purcell-fronts-museum-for-shoemaking-with-zigzagging-brick-facade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/509149\/","title":{"rendered":"Purcell fronts museum for shoemaking with zigzagging brick facade"},"content":{"rendered":"

A faceted brick<\/a> extension links a manor house and a 17th-century barn to form the Shoemakers Museum in Somerset<\/a>, England, designed by UK studio\u00a0Purcell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Commissioned by local charity Alfred Gillett Trust<\/a>, the museum<\/a> houses collections of fossils and displays on shoemaking, including the history of shoe retailer Clarks<\/a>, which was founded locally in the village of Street 200 years ago.<\/p>\n

\"ShoemakersA brick extension connects a manor house and a barn at the Shoemakers Museum<\/p>\n

A brick extension that is fronted by a colonnade connects a renovated 16th-century manor house and 17th-century barn, forming an L-shaped layout around a lawn.<\/p>\n

Gallery spaces dedicated to shoes are located in the two-storey brick extension, while fossil collections are found in the renovated barn. A cafe and offices are located in the updated manor house.<\/p>\n

\"ColonnadeThe museum has an L-shaped layout that wraps a lawn<\/p>\n

The upper portion of the Shoemakers Museum extension has a zigzagging exterior with corbelled brickwork \u2013 a technique that incorporates protusions and recesses \u2013 crafted by local bricklayer PJ Cook.<\/p>\n

This decorative facade was designed as a nod to the sawtooth roof of Clark’s former factory and design elements seen in Clarks shoes, such as perforations and zigzagging fabric edges.<\/p>\n

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AL_A adds red glass entrance and panoramic extension to Paisley Museum\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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“We translated Clarks’ design language through delicate brick detailing \u2013 perforations like brogues, projections echoing visible stitching, pinked edges referenced in the stepped corbelling,” Purcell<\/a> architect Alasdair Ferguson told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“It creates depth and character whilst referencing the craft and quality of what’s inside.”<\/p>\n

\"InteriorThe Shoemakers Museum was designed to connect Street with its history<\/p>\n

Purcell’s design for the Shoemakers Museum aimed to celebrate the subject matter of its collections \u2013 shoes and fossils \u2013 as well as the history of Street.<\/p>\n

Blue Lias limestone, which contains fossil traces, was used to construct portions of the museum walls, around 70 per cent of which was salvaged from the site.<\/p>\n

\"MuseumIt contains displays on the history of shoemaking and fossils<\/p>\n

“It was a brilliant brief \u2013 designing a shoe and fossil museum that stitches together two very different listed buildings while creating something architecturally distinctive,” said Ferguson.<\/p>\n

“This museum reconnects Street to its heritage with a building that celebrates it,” he continued. “Each material grounds the building in its context while telling the story of place, making and craft.”<\/p>\n

“It’s a home for the stories of generations who made those shoes, giving the community a place to honour their heritage crafted over two hundred years.”<\/p>\n

Other projects completed by Purcell include the renovation of London’s National Portrait Gallery<\/a> and the restoration of the Elizabeth Tower<\/a>, which was shortlisted for the 2025 Stirling Prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The photography is by Nick Guttridge<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A faceted brick extension links a manor house and a 17th-century barn to form the Shoemakers Museum in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6551,76,354,355,53005,49,48,85759,356,588,75,62432,38334,67244,43592,49626,49627,16691,182773,3585],"class_list":{"0":"post-509149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-adaptive-reuse","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-bricks","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-cultural-buildings","16":"tag-design","17":"tag-england","18":"tag-entertainment","19":"tag-extensions","20":"tag-museums","21":"tag-purcell","22":"tag-renovations","23":"tag-sectionall","24":"tag-sectionarchitecture","25":"tag-shoes","26":"tag-somerset","27":"tag-uk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509149","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=509149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}