Turner Contemporary in Margate on the north coast of Kent, UK, has been chosen as one of 21 landmarks that define Britain in the 21st century. Among the celebrated structures are Sir Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North, St Paul’s Cathedral in London and Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

The building was designed by David Chipperfield and it was completed on 2011. The Independent Traveller, along with BA's High Life magazine, has asked people to nominate structures that best represent the country today. The public votes were then presented for consideration to a panel of judges, who made their final decision at London’s Hotel Café Royal.

Iwona Blazwick, director of Whitechapel Gallery and member of the jury, said "the architect, David Chipperfield, has built something which pays tribute to Turner himself and puts something on the horizon. It's a great journey to go inside it. It's transformed Margate."

Description of the project by David Chipperfield.

Turner Contemporary is a new gallery in Margate on the north coast of Kent. Its name was inspired by the town’s association with the English painter JMW Turner, who exclaimed, ‘… the skies over Thanet [the north-eastern tip of Kent] are the loveliest in all Europe’. The gallery is located on a prominent seafront, previously a car park, where a guesthouse frequented by Turner once stood.

The new two-storey building is designed to maximise both the dramatic setting between sea and land and the extraordinary light conditions unique to this area that inspired Turner well over a century ago. It is composed of six identical crystalline volumes with monopitched roofs providing north light to the gallery spaces and revealing daily and seasonal light changes. Turner Contemporary offers spectacular views to the sea, connecting visitors to the broader landscape whilst encouraging a sense of participation in the community. The gallery is visible from the railway station across the sandy beach and forms a focal point on the horizon. As the seafront is occasionally flooded, the building has been raised on a plinth and its immediate surroundings provided with a hard landscape.

The public gallery, which has no permanent collection, presents both historic and contemporary works as well as a programme of educational and cultural events with a broad community appeal. The ground-floor spaces include a reception area, a flexible event space and a cafeteria – all of which can operate independently from the climate-controlled exhibition spaces occupying the upper floor. Direct daylight enters the building from the clerestory windows on the north side and diffused sunlight from the skylights above each of the six volumes.

The building is constructed with a concrete frame and acid-etched glass skin. The envelope has to withstand the corrosive nature of the sea, high humidity levels, strong winds and the occasional wave overtopping the building. The façades are primarily of glass with reinforced windows. Internally, the material palette is reduced to hard-wearing screed floors and dry lining to facilitate the hanging of changing exhibitions.

CREDITS. TECHNICAL SHEET.-

Architect.- David Chipperfield Architects London.
Director.- Franz Borho.
Project architects.- Holger Mattes, Caroline Rogerson.
Landscape architect.- Gross Max.
Structural engineer.- Adams Kara Taylor.
Services engineer.- Services engineer, Access consultant, Acoustic consultant, Fire consultant, Lighting consultant, Façade consultant.- Arup.
Quantity surveyor.- Gardiner & Theobold.

Contractor.- R Durtnell & Sons.
Date.- 2006-2011.
Gross floor area.- 3,100 sqm.
Client.- Kent County Council.

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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.

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