Ref: PR1549
Date: 10/10/07
The architect who designed Wakefield's new art gallery has won a prestigious national architecture award.
David Chipperfield, designer of The Hepworth Wakefield, won the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Stirling Prize for his design for the Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach am Neckar, Germany.
It is the most prestigious award in UK architecture and recognises the design of the building which has been the most significant for the evolution of architecture in the past year.
The official ceremony took place on Saturday 6 October, at The Roundhouse in London and was broadcast live on Channel 4. The judges praised the building as both "rich and restrained".
Wakefield Council's Cabinet Member for Regeneration Denise Jeffery said: "We are proud to have selected David Chipperfield in 2003 to design The Hepworth Wakefield, which is an exciting and vibrant new art gallery on Wakefield's historic waterfront. And we are very pleased he has received such a prestigious award. He is internationally acclaimed and it is great news that he has now been recognised in the UK for the quality of his designs."
In his design for The Hepworth Wakefield the building is formed from differently sized trapezium blocks, each one representing an individual gallery or suite of rooms. The gallery is on a dramatic site at the southern gateway to the city. There is water on two sides and the building is visible from all directions.
Cabinet Member for Culture, Tourism and Sport Cllr Clive Hudson said: "The Hepworth Wakefield is an outstanding commission for David Chipperfield. I am confident that, when it opens in 2010, the gallery will be a major addition to the cultural attractions in Wakefield, particularly the highly successful Yorkshire Sculpture Park, National Coal Mining Museum for England and Nostell Priory.
"We have named The Hepworth Wakefield after the internationally important sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth, who was born and went to school in Wakefield."
Notes:
The Museum of Modern Literature was one of the two projects by David Chipperfield Architects shortlisted for the 2007 Stirling Prize, the other being the America's Cup Building in Valencia, Spain. The four other shortlisted projects were: the Casa da Musica in Porto, Portugal (OMA and Arup); Dresden Station Redevelopment, Germany (Foster and Partners); The Savill Building, Windsor (Glenn Howells Architects) and The Young Vic Theatre, London (Haworth Tompkins Architects).
The Museum of Modern Literature displays and works of 20th century literature, notably the original manuscripts of Franz Kafka's The Trial and Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz, the museum also provides panoramic views across and over the far distant landscape. Entered from its highest point, the pavilion-like interiors of the museum reveal themselves further you descend through their display and archive spaces.
