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Porter Gallery

Block Architecture, London, 2007

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Thousands of cables supporting roof's steel frame

Leon Chew Download Original

Gallery designed to house temporary exhibitions at the V&A incorporating a suspended steel cable roof

The V&A Porter Gallery will house the contemporary programme of the V&A over the next ten years. The entrance to the space creates a transitional lobby where a shift from the V&A proper to the contemporary programme is allowed to occur. It has been designed to offer different forms of access to the gallery through five seven metre high rotating screens.

The screens can be reconfigured to the curatorial needs of each exhibition and are clad in reflective black carbon fibre sheeting

The existing central lantern light presented an opportunity for structural intervention. The roof of the envelope is supported by over three thousand one-millimetre cables carrying the centre-point in the span.

This allows the structural elements to be as slender and lightweight as possible. This creates a mist-like structure that hovers above the roof and is visible from within the gallery.