Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre

Richard Murphy Architects, Dundee, 1999

 

Subscribe now to instantly view this image

Subscribe to the Architects’ Journal (AJ) for instant access to the AJ Buildings Library, an online database of nearly 2,000 exemplar buildings in photographs, plans, elevations and details.

Already a subscriber? Sign in

The entrance prow on to Perth Road 

David Churchill (website)     Download Original

  • The entrance prow on to Perth Road    
  • South Facade- The poet    
  • Courtyard ramp    
  • View of Gallery    
  • Pre-patinated copper panels complete the warehouse facade. The rear staircase leads from the car park directly to the cafe    
  • A trail of light tempts visitors through the internal street    
  • The double-height café-bar is the hub of the building – visible from both of the main public floors, and with sliding doors on to the courtyard    
  • View of stair from cafe    
  • View of the gallery space from internal street    
  • A shutter below the cinema screen opens to reveal the outside world    
  • Site plan    
  • Ground floor plan    
  • Second floor plan    
  • Third floor plan    
  • Section    
  • Sunligh entry concept section    
  • Details through glazed and copper-clad wall with sliding panels    
  • Details through glazed and copper-clad wall with sliding panels    

Restoration and extension of warehouse to house galleries, cinemas, print workshops, shop and research facilities around a central social space and cafe.

The building partially reuses the brick warehouse of the former Macleans garage and forms an 'L' shaped plan on a site which falls three storeys from front to back. The cafe and foyer sit at the internal corner of this 'L' and are therefore at the heart of the building in plan and section.

Adjacent to the cafe and visible from it is the world of the printmakers, placed there as an enticement to participate whilst beneath is the two storey 'engine room' of the university facilities grouped around a double height experimental gallery.

The language of the building grows out of the idea of inserting the new facilities within the eroded shell of the former brick warehouse. New building slips past the old in a series of planar elements of copper glass and steel. These planes then become a language of the new wing beneath a single unifying roof profile and are repeated in sliding doors and walls internally.

Data

  • Begun: Mar 1997
  • Completed: 1999
  • Floor area: 5,145m2
  • Sector: Arts and culture
  • Total cost: £5.5M
  • Funding: Private
  • Tender date: Dec 1996
  • Procurement: JCT80 (with Contractor's Design Portion), Local Authorities Edition/two-stage selective tendering
  • Address: 152 Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4DY, United Kingdom

Professional Team

Suppliers