Holburne Museum

The building was once the Sydney Hotel - before being adapted into a museum in the early 20th century - the architect has maintained and refurbished the ‘ballroom’, which takes up the entire width of the house and opens to the portico. It is now the main display space of the permanent collection.

The top-lit gallery over the ballroom has been adapted to become the home of the museum’s most prominent holding, its 18th-century English paintings.

This gallery connects the articulating staircase hall to the space for temporary exhibitions in the new building, currently occupied by a museum of Peter Blake’s personal artworks and curiosities. Below it, and corresponding to the ballroom, is a two-level gallery.

The ground floor is given over to the café, open to the garden on three sides.

At ground level, the café is completely transparent. The two-level exhibition room is lit by side-windows, while the top floor, which houses the roof-lit display space for temporary shows, has opaque walls.

Each of the three levels is gently cantilevered, but the outer glass skin is continuous and suspended, the control of heat gain insured by triple glass screen walls, internally ventilated by air drawn in at ground level and naturally extracted at the top.