In Good Form, Recent Sculptures from the Arts Council Collection
Longside Yorkshire Sculpture Park

In June 2003 sculpture from the Arts Council collection was relocated to the Longside Gallery in Yorkshire Sculpture Park, a building that we were responsible for designing. To complement our appointment as architect of the building, we were now invited to test the functionality and flexibility of the spaces we had created by designing the inaugural exhibition. In Good Form: Recent Sculptures from the Arts Council Collection brought together recent acquisitions of the collection to highlight the continued innovation and vibrancy of British sculpture. Exhibits included major works by internationally acclaimed British artists including Richard Deacon, Damien Hirst, Shirazeh Houshiary and Cornelia Parker.

It was evident to us from the outset that all the exhibits were of a particular range of scale and that the majority of the works would need to be arranged on the gallery floor as free-standing objects. A wall was prepared within which to recess Anish Kapoor’s stainless steel ‘Untitled 1995’ and the viewing room within the store provided a spectacular contained space within which to display Fiona Banner’s work.

We thought of the building as a tent-like structure – large and white – standing in a semi industrial landscape with discrete views of the meadows of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. All measures were taken when specifying the fabric of the building to ensure low energy maintenance of temperature and humidity levels which met with conservation standards for the display of fine art exhibits.

The provision of the Longside Gallery gave visibility to a collection of works, which had up until this point been concealed in store, fulfilling the original objective of the Arts Council collection to be seen by and distributed to other collectors and museums.

Completion date: June 2003
Client: Arts Council of England & Hayward Gallery
Photographs: David Grandorge