New Hostel to Help Spur Margate's Revival by David Chipperfield Architects
10/08/2018.
[Margate-Kent] UK
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
Description of project by David Chipperfield Architects
The Turner Rooms project on the Margate waterfront represents a new phase for Turner Contemporary art gallery, growing its vision and securing its financial future. The proposal provides the existing building with spaces to expand its range of cultural and artistic activities, broadening its appeal and offering new ways for people to engage with the gallery and town, and to encounter for themselves the changing light conditions of the Kent coastline that first drew J. M. W. Turner to the area.
The central function of Turner Rooms is to provide a residential component to the gallery’s facilities, accommodating visitors and group events, such as conferences, that are related to the Turner Contemporary programme. The hostel contains 100 simple, functional sea-facing rooms across four levels, which are designed to be accessible in price and flexible in arrangement. Meeting rooms, social spaces, and a cafe/brasserie will be located on the lower levels of the building, and open out onto the surrounding terrace.
Based on knowledge of the site, its surrounding context and the ambitions of the cultural institution, the new building would work together with the art gallery, allowing it to decant some activities, such as the cafe and events space, thereby liberating extra space for exhibition and display.
It is anticipated that the project would attract major private donations and sponsorship to cover the construction costs and subsidise the Turner Rooms project, as well as generate an endowment for Turner Contemporary that would allow it to expand its social and educational role within the community.
The project was independently conceived by David Chipperfield Architects and given to Turner Contemporary on a pro bono basis.
David Chipperfield was born in London in 1953 and studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London before working at the practices of Douglas Stephen, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster.
In 1985 he founded David Chipperfield Architects, which today has over 300 staff at its offices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai.
David Chipperfield has taught and held conferences in Europe and the United States and has received honorary degrees from the universities of Kingston and Kent.
He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and an honorary fellow of both the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). In 2009 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 2010 he received a knighthood for services to architecture in the UK and Germany. In 2011 he received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture and in 2013 the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, while in 2021 he was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in recognition of a lifetime’s work.
In 2012 he curated the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.