MK Gallery, Milton Keynes

Culture doesn’t grow organically in a town created from scratch, however, and galleries in such places can sometimes struggle to reflect a distinct local identity. But that’s not the case with MK Gallery, the town’s contemporary art gallery. Originally built in 1999, the institution has just reopened following a £12m transformation that wonderfully captures the town’s character, finding playful ways to celebrate its visual quirks and fascinating origins. 

The small, concrete box that once housed the original gallery now comes with a larger box attached: a shiny extension designed by the architect 6a. The extension is clad in stainless steel panels, all set at a slightly oblique angle that means they never reflect their exact surroundings. Sometimes the box lights up against the sky, mirroring a sunset that’s just out of frame. 

The architect took time to delve into the original archives of the 1960s town planners and it shows. On one side of the extension, at the centre of this grid of panels, sits a huge circular window. The grid-and-circle as a motif crops up subtly throughout the gallery, from globe lighting fixtures to the toilets with round mirrors and square tiles. It took a little time for it to dawn on me that it’s a homage to the town’s lattice of straight roads and roundabouts. 

This new building is an eye-catching addition to the landscape, but the older part of the gallery has had a colourful revamp too. Painted in retro mud brown and yellow, it also features a neon heart of the kind found on early advertising tempting people to move to the town. The entrance is framed by a porte-cochère – a replica of the original squat, black canopies that sit in front of almost every Milton Keynes shop and public building. These visual references are designed to play on people’s affection and nostalgia without being too heavy handed. 

Inside, the gallery is unfussy and airy, all concrete floors and white walls. It’s standard gallery fare, but there are plenty of bold splashes of colour and creative touches that elevate the space, like the fire engine-red staircase that spirals up one side of the new building. The extension has given the gallery room to put much more on display, as well as adding an education space. There’s also a new cafe, where exposed piping and factory-style lighting nod to the room’s former use as a loading bay. 

One unexpected highlight of the gallery is the downstairs loo, where black tiles and yellow walls continue the bold aesthetic, making the room seem almost as if it could be an art installation itself. The toilet features a state-of-the-art changing places facility for disabled visitors, one of many accessible features in the building. 

The gallery’s opening exhibition, The Lie of the Land, which ended on 26 May, fittingly took its theme as landscapes and cities, exploring grand designs in town planning – and how these utopian ideals sometimes get “undermined by reality”. It is a clever, creative means of getting visitors to reflect not just on the origins of the town, but on the gallery’s own renovation. 

It is here we learn, for example, that its retro palette draws on two original colour charts from a 1970s Habitat catalogue that were created to reflect MK’s town centre and its surrounding countryside (Habitat’s founder Terence Conran acted as a consultant on the development of Milton Keynes).

The “pastoral” chart inspired the kaleidoscope of greens, blues, browns and yellows that can be found on the curtains of the Sky Room, an upstairs auditorium that offers a panoramic view of one of the town’s largest green spaces through the gallery’s giant, circular window. The “downtown” colour chart’s brighter neons – pinks, purples, yellows – are all referenced in various rooms of the gallery. 

The exhibition deftly connects the future and the past, drawing links between Stowe, a nearby 17th-century Capability Brown landscape, which was the first leisure garden in England that the general public could visit, and the modern architects who were inspired by those earlier visionaries. In addition to artwork ranging from that of the landscape painter John Constable to contemporary artist Yinka Shonibare, the exhibition features a wealth of maps and aerial photographs of the town, and futuristic architects’ drawings of never-built cities and theme parks. 

One thought-provoking series of photographs by Michael Kirkham shows makeshift goalposts painted on dilapidated buildings, where, for want of anything better, local people have taken planning into their own hands. Like the gallery itself, the exhibition is playful yet layered, clever without being knowing. Hopefully the latest show, Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance (15 June-22 September), will strike a similar chord. 

Another aim of the redevelopment was to create a more flowing connection between the gallery’s interior and exterior. Although it wasn’t quite finished when I visited, the gallery is due to have a new entrance leading to an outdoor playscape for children. This features stainless steel miniatures of iconic Milton Keynes landmarks, with lots of cones and globes. It’s a clever touch – a mini leisurescape inspired by a much larger one.

The redevelopment is sure to be a draw for art lovers. But more importantly, it feels like a gallery that speaks to its local audience, giving Milton Keynesians a fun and unpretentious space that they can truly call their own.