Sensitive and successful museum redevelopments can be tricky to pull off, and Kettle’s Yard is a classic example of a challenging project. The gallery, part of the University of Cambridge, is on a tight site with difficult access. It includes listed buildings and has evolved through a series of additions. On top of all this, it is home to a nationally important art collection that needs careful care.
Kettle’s Yard is a special place for many in the museum sector and some significant figures have been regular visitors, including the former Tate boss and current Arts Council England chairman, Nicholas Serota, who studied at Cambridge in the 1960s.
The gallery-house was created by the former Tate curator, Jim Ede, and his wife, Helen, who used it as their home from 1958 to 1973. It contains their diverse collection of 20th century art, as well as ceramics, textiles, furniture and natural objects, which are shown in a domestic setting without labels or cases.
The lack of interpretation might annoy some but including labels would ruin the atmosphere of the domestic setting. I’m usually very much on the side of giving visitors as much help as possible to understand what they are seeing but in this case it is the right decision not to include printed descriptions about each item. There are staff for visitors to talk to and the printed guidebook is very informative.
The house very much reflects Ede’s life, including his friendships with artists such as Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood and David Jones. One of the aims of the redevelopment was to stay faithful to his vision of how people should experience art.
As if this was not enough to deal with, the 1970s extension at Kettle’s Yard is seen as a late-modern masterpiece and is revered by many architects. It was created by Leslie Martin, who led the design team for London’s Royal Festival Hall, and David Owers.
So the challenge was to improve and extend a complex site in a way that works for modern audiences without losing what makes the venue special for so many people.
Subtle changes
The project got off to a good start with the appointment of Jamie Fobert as the architect. His practice recently completed the extension of Tate St Ives in Cornwall. It is also working on a new visitor centre for Charleston in East Sussex and has been appointed to lead the £35m transformation of London’s National Portrait Gallery.
Fobert began work on the Kettle’s Yard project in 2004 under Michael Harrison, the previous director, who died in 2011. Andrew Nairne, the museum’s current director, decided to extend the project to include new galleries.
Fobert has taken a sensitive and subtle approach: little has been done to the house, which Ede created from four 19th-century dilapidated cottages, and the rooms have been spruced up rather than changed. As before, there are no labels or cases for the artworks.
The way the transition works between the house and the 1970s extension is vital, as it is designed to be as seamless as possible. Many visitors don’t notice that they have moved from one to the other. Fobert has followed this approach in the rest of the gallery by making sure that visitors’ journey through the spaces is easy. This has partly been achieved by solving issues associated with the gallery’s many levels, which used to make access for those with disabilities impossible in some areas. Many of these problems have been resolved, although the museum is still not fully accessible.
With the house and the 1970s extension left largely intact, everything else was demolished to make way for new galleries and a reception area, except for the Victorian facade on Castle Street. One of the two new galleries has large double-height windows facing out onto the street, part of the move to open up the gallery to the outside world. The new education room also has huge windows so people can peer down into it and see what’s going on. Cambridge is a city of learning but this often happens behind closed doors. The new Kettle’s Yard, although very much part of the university, wants to be different.
The effort to be more user-friendly is also reflected in improvements to visitor flow. Previously, multiple front doors caused confusion and people sometimes walked away without entering. Ticketing and visitor information is now in the new and extended entrance area. But Kettle’s Yard wanted to keep the experience of entering the house through a narrow passage and ringing the bell at a small side door, so this has been retained.
All this talk of how special and revered Kettle’s Yard is might make the museum sound slightly off-putting, but this was not Ede’s aim – in fact, quite the opposite. As he wrote in a guide to the gallery in 1970, he wanted to create a “living place where works of art could be enjoyed, inherent to the domestic setting, where young people could be at home unhampered by the greater austerity of the museum or public art gallery”.
The Edes lived at Kettle’s Yard for 15 years and every afternoon would welcome into their home anyone who wanted to see their art. But simply having a spirit of openness is not enough now: venues have to work harder to attract visitors.
The redevelopment has created physical spaces that make the gallery feel more open and accessible. But Kettle’s Yard will have to think carefully about how it integrates the spirit of the Edes into the programming to attract a wider range of people. Nairne says the gallery cares passionately about how it connects with the local community, and there are a number of projects that aim to move its work beyond the gallery walls.
The opening exhibition, Actions: The Image of the World can be Different – held in two parts – is a group show featuring new and existing work by 38 artists (until 6 May). As part of this, the Tunisian artist eL Seed has created a mural in north Cambridge. The show, which is inspired by a letter written by the sculptor Naum Gabo, a close friend of Ede, also features a large installation by the London-based artist Rana Begum for the church of St Peter’s next to Kettle’s Yard. There are also works by Khadija Saye, the young artist who died at the Grenfell Tower fire in west London last year.
Overall, the new-look gallery is the model of a sensitive redevelopment that has the potential to transform the organisation and its relationship with audiences, although the success of this will be down to the ambition and abilities of its staff. All this has been achieved while retaining and enhancing what makes Kettle’s Yard special.
But even in a gallery largely dedicated to the vision of the husband and wife who lived here, I was left wanting to know more about both Jim and Helen and to understand them better. While their spirit is all around you, they still feel tantalisingly out of reach. But reincarnation is probably beyond the budget of a university museum and maybe it is that sense of mystery about the Edes that plays a part in making this venue such an intriguing place.
Before the building project you could visit the house and not realise there was a gallery for temporary exhibitions. Now, everyone starts their visit to Kettle’s Yard in our entrance area. From there you are led up to visit the house, ringing the bell as always (a fishing cork on a rope), or alternatively visiting the galleries, education wing or shop and cafe, all a few steps from the oak front desk.
Jamie Fobert, our architect, has spoken about his wish to create a continuity between the work of Leslie Martin, who designed the 1970 house extension, and his own work. Now, as visitors leave the house, they find themselves back where they started, in the entrance area, a space that works exactly because it is not the gallery or shop, but a place for meeting and conversation.
Fobert speaks of wishing to create a “meandering sensibility”. This is expressed beautifully in the traditional pavers (first used by Martin in the house) that run from the courtyard through the entrance area, cafe and shop and towards the steps or elegant ramp down to the galleries and education wing; the change from sand-coloured brick to pale grey concrete beautifully reflecting the transition in scale and purpose, as a new vista opens up.
Andrew Nairne is the director of Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge
Main funders Arts Council England, £3.65m; Heritage Lottery Fund, £2.45m; University of Cambridge; Clore Duffield Foundation; Cambridge City Council; DCMS Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund; Edlis Neeson Foundation;
JP Getty Jr Charitable Trust, Monument Trust; Sackler Trust; Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement
Architect Jamie Fobert Architects
Construction SDC Builders
Structural engineer Elliott Wood
Joinery Coulson Joinery
Architectural metalwork Basset + Findlay
Concrete floors Lazenby
Lighting consultant Lightplan
Project Manager 3PM
Admission free
Kettle’s Yard is a special place for many in the museum sector and some significant figures have been regular visitors, including the former Tate boss and current Arts Council England chairman, Nicholas Serota, who studied at Cambridge in the 1960s.
The gallery-house was created by the former Tate curator, Jim Ede, and his wife, Helen, who used it as their home from 1958 to 1973. It contains their diverse collection of 20th century art, as well as ceramics, textiles, furniture and natural objects, which are shown in a domestic setting without labels or cases.
The lack of interpretation might annoy some but including labels would ruin the atmosphere of the domestic setting. I’m usually very much on the side of giving visitors as much help as possible to understand what they are seeing but in this case it is the right decision not to include printed descriptions about each item. There are staff for visitors to talk to and the printed guidebook is very informative.
The house very much reflects Ede’s life, including his friendships with artists such as Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood and David Jones. One of the aims of the redevelopment was to stay faithful to his vision of how people should experience art.
As if this was not enough to deal with, the 1970s extension at Kettle’s Yard is seen as a late-modern masterpiece and is revered by many architects. It was created by Leslie Martin, who led the design team for London’s Royal Festival Hall, and David Owers.
So the challenge was to improve and extend a complex site in a way that works for modern audiences without losing what makes the venue special for so many people.
Subtle changes
The project got off to a good start with the appointment of Jamie Fobert as the architect. His practice recently completed the extension of Tate St Ives in Cornwall. It is also working on a new visitor centre for Charleston in East Sussex and has been appointed to lead the £35m transformation of London’s National Portrait Gallery.
Fobert began work on the Kettle’s Yard project in 2004 under Michael Harrison, the previous director, who died in 2011. Andrew Nairne, the museum’s current director, decided to extend the project to include new galleries.
Fobert has taken a sensitive and subtle approach: little has been done to the house, which Ede created from four 19th-century dilapidated cottages, and the rooms have been spruced up rather than changed. As before, there are no labels or cases for the artworks.
The way the transition works between the house and the 1970s extension is vital, as it is designed to be as seamless as possible. Many visitors don’t notice that they have moved from one to the other. Fobert has followed this approach in the rest of the gallery by making sure that visitors’ journey through the spaces is easy. This has partly been achieved by solving issues associated with the gallery’s many levels, which used to make access for those with disabilities impossible in some areas. Many of these problems have been resolved, although the museum is still not fully accessible.
With the house and the 1970s extension left largely intact, everything else was demolished to make way for new galleries and a reception area, except for the Victorian facade on Castle Street. One of the two new galleries has large double-height windows facing out onto the street, part of the move to open up the gallery to the outside world. The new education room also has huge windows so people can peer down into it and see what’s going on. Cambridge is a city of learning but this often happens behind closed doors. The new Kettle’s Yard, although very much part of the university, wants to be different.
The effort to be more user-friendly is also reflected in improvements to visitor flow. Previously, multiple front doors caused confusion and people sometimes walked away without entering. Ticketing and visitor information is now in the new and extended entrance area. But Kettle’s Yard wanted to keep the experience of entering the house through a narrow passage and ringing the bell at a small side door, so this has been retained.
All this talk of how special and revered Kettle’s Yard is might make the museum sound slightly off-putting, but this was not Ede’s aim – in fact, quite the opposite. As he wrote in a guide to the gallery in 1970, he wanted to create a “living place where works of art could be enjoyed, inherent to the domestic setting, where young people could be at home unhampered by the greater austerity of the museum or public art gallery”.
The Edes lived at Kettle’s Yard for 15 years and every afternoon would welcome into their home anyone who wanted to see their art. But simply having a spirit of openness is not enough now: venues have to work harder to attract visitors.
The redevelopment has created physical spaces that make the gallery feel more open and accessible. But Kettle’s Yard will have to think carefully about how it integrates the spirit of the Edes into the programming to attract a wider range of people. Nairne says the gallery cares passionately about how it connects with the local community, and there are a number of projects that aim to move its work beyond the gallery walls.
The opening exhibition, Actions: The Image of the World can be Different – held in two parts – is a group show featuring new and existing work by 38 artists (until 6 May). As part of this, the Tunisian artist eL Seed has created a mural in north Cambridge. The show, which is inspired by a letter written by the sculptor Naum Gabo, a close friend of Ede, also features a large installation by the London-based artist Rana Begum for the church of St Peter’s next to Kettle’s Yard. There are also works by Khadija Saye, the young artist who died at the Grenfell Tower fire in west London last year.
Overall, the new-look gallery is the model of a sensitive redevelopment that has the potential to transform the organisation and its relationship with audiences, although the success of this will be down to the ambition and abilities of its staff. All this has been achieved while retaining and enhancing what makes Kettle’s Yard special.
But even in a gallery largely dedicated to the vision of the husband and wife who lived here, I was left wanting to know more about both Jim and Helen and to understand them better. While their spirit is all around you, they still feel tantalisingly out of reach. But reincarnation is probably beyond the budget of a university museum and maybe it is that sense of mystery about the Edes that plays a part in making this venue such an intriguing place.
Focus on: Entrance Space
Welcoming 40,000 visitors since our opening in February, it has been wonderful to see our new galleries and education spaces in action. But if there is one part of the new Kettle’s Yard that has made everything else possible it is the entrance area (shown below).Before the building project you could visit the house and not realise there was a gallery for temporary exhibitions. Now, everyone starts their visit to Kettle’s Yard in our entrance area. From there you are led up to visit the house, ringing the bell as always (a fishing cork on a rope), or alternatively visiting the galleries, education wing or shop and cafe, all a few steps from the oak front desk.
Jamie Fobert, our architect, has spoken about his wish to create a continuity between the work of Leslie Martin, who designed the 1970 house extension, and his own work. Now, as visitors leave the house, they find themselves back where they started, in the entrance area, a space that works exactly because it is not the gallery or shop, but a place for meeting and conversation.
Fobert speaks of wishing to create a “meandering sensibility”. This is expressed beautifully in the traditional pavers (first used by Martin in the house) that run from the courtyard through the entrance area, cafe and shop and towards the steps or elegant ramp down to the galleries and education wing; the change from sand-coloured brick to pale grey concrete beautifully reflecting the transition in scale and purpose, as a new vista opens up.
Andrew Nairne is the director of Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge
Project data
Cost £11mMain funders Arts Council England, £3.65m; Heritage Lottery Fund, £2.45m; University of Cambridge; Clore Duffield Foundation; Cambridge City Council; DCMS Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund; Edlis Neeson Foundation;
JP Getty Jr Charitable Trust, Monument Trust; Sackler Trust; Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement
Architect Jamie Fobert Architects
Construction SDC Builders
Structural engineer Elliott Wood
Joinery Coulson Joinery
Architectural metalwork Basset + Findlay
Concrete floors Lazenby
Lighting consultant Lightplan
Project Manager 3PM
Admission free
