New First World War Galleries at Imperial War Museum

As part of the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War, impressive new galleries centred on a new atrium have been unveiled today at the Imperial War Museum. These new public spaces represent the first phase of a long-term redevelopment project, which will improve access and circulation through the Museum, open the interiors to daylight and views, and create new connections with the surrounding park.

The heart of the building is a generous new atrium, which provides a dramatic space in which to view the largest objects from the Museum’s collection. The relationship between these exhibits and the surrounding galleries has been completely redefined – the Harrier jet, Spitfire, V2 rocket and other iconic objects are suspended to correspond with the gallery displays on each of the floors for the first time. Viewed from the upper levels, the aircraft are framed by a series of large-scale concrete fins. These fins line the atrium and widen as they rise to provide structural support for the aircraft, extended gallery floors and barrel vaulted roof. Terraces between the fins open up visual connections vertically and across the central space, and a new gallery floor suspended beneath the dome of the roof protects the exhibits from direct sunlight.

The galleries have been completely reconfigured, with a new chronological arrangement designed to be more intuitive. The new First World War Galleries, with interiors by Casson Mann, are located at ground level, and the top floor of the building will eventually be dedicated to current conflicts. Vertical circulation has also been redesigned to make the connections between floors more visible – a new cantilevered stair forms the backdrop to the atrium.

Rather than encroaching on the exhibition space, the café and shop have now been relocated to the new, lower entrance level at ground floor. The previously sealed ground floor windows along the western façade have been opened up to allow views into the museum, as well as views of the park from the atrium. The café can now be used outside of the Museum’s opening hours, and its seating extends into the park to create an open air dining area.

The floor of the atrium has been lowered to park level, in anticipation of a future phase of development, in which the approach to the building will be scooped out to create a single, accessible entrance for all below the existing portico stair. The current entrance staircase is temporary and will be removed when the new approach sequence is complete. The planned oval forecourt will create a public plaza, visually balancing the weight of the historic building and emphasising the Imperial War Museum as a contemporary institution, while retaining the integrity of the existing structure.

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Situation plan. New First World War Galleries at Imperial War Museum. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners.

Seconf Floor Plan. New First World War Galleries at Imperial War Museum. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners.

Third Floor Plan. New First World War Galleries at Imperial War Museum. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners.

Fourth Floor Plan. New First World War Galleries at Imperial War Museum. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners.

Cross section. New First World War Galleries at Imperial War Museum. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners.

Section. New First World War Galleries at Imperial War Museum. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners.

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Architects

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Foster + Partners.

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Collaborators

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Structural Engineer.- Buro Happold. Quantity Surveyor.- Turner and Townsend. M+E Engineer.- Buro Happold. Lighting Engineer: George Sexton Associates.
Additional Consultants.- Jonas Deloitte, Jonas Deloitte, Sandy Brown, Buro Happold, Alan Baxter & Associates LLP, Court Catering Equipment Ltd., Scott White and Hookins, Centre for Accessibl.

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Client

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Imperial War Museum.

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Area

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22,500 m².

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Dates

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July 2014.

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Location

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http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.496018,-0.108365.

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Photography

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Foster + Partners.

NORMAN FOSTER

Norman Foster is considered by many to be the most prominent architect in Britain. He won the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2009 Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.

Lord Foster rebuilt the Reichstag as a new German Parliament in Berlin and designed a contemporary Great Court for the British Museum. He linked St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern with the Millennium Bridge, a steel footbridge across the Thames. He designed the Hearst Corporation Building in Manhattan, at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.

He was born in Manchester, England, in 1935. Among his firm’s many other projects are London’s City Hall, the Bilbao Metro in Spain, the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London and the renovated courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

In the 1970s, Lord Foster was one of the most visible practitioners of high-tech architecture that fetishized machine culture. His triumphant 1986 Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building, conceived as a kit-of-parts plugged into a towering steel frame, was capitalism's answer to the populist Pompidou Center in Paris.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, The Times’s architecture critic, has written that although Lord Foster’s work has become sleeker and more predictable in recent years, his forms are always driven by an internal structural logic, and they treat their surroundings with a refreshing bluntness.

Awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts 2009.