Design: The Hepworth Wakefield
© David Chipperfield Image: Stephen Whitton (August 2007)
The Hepworth Wakefield is the relocation and expansion of Wakefield's existing City Art Gallery to the conservation area at the headland of the River Calder.
Wakefield Art Gallery’s existing collection includes works by many major British and European artists and The Hepworth Wakefield will additionally house a unique collection of thirty original plaster sculptures by the locally born Barbara Hepworth.
The new gallery building is formed from a conglomeration of differently sized trapezoidal shaped blocks, responding to the scale and rooflines of the surrounding small scaled industrial buildings.
Design: The Hepworth Wakefield
© David Chipperfield Image: Stephen Whitton (August 2007)
With water on two sides and visible from all directions, the site and therefore the building, has no front or back elevation.
The building blocks form the rooms of the building.
Galleries are located on the upper floor. They are sized according to the scale of the works, with smaller rooms for earlier works and larger rooms for contemporary works.
At the lower level, the rooms contain the other gallery functions - performance/conference space, learning suite, public facilities including reception, shop and cafe, and the administration and back of house areas.
Design: The Hepworth Wakefield
© David Chipperfield Image: Stephen Whitton (August 2007)
The cafe spills out on to terraces leading down to the landscaped garden, Listed Grade II Watermill and Rive Calder.
