Fullbrooks of England were contracted to use their specialist restoration skills on the interior plaster mouldings of The Bath Holburne Museum. This work is now completed and the work to the musem has been nominated for a RIBA Stirling Prize. The development was supported by a grant from The Heritage Lottery Fund.
Baths Holburne Museum was one of four projects in the south west to win a prestigious architectural award and the only south west project to be awarded Building of the Year.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announced the winners of the 2012 RIBA Awards on Thursday 21 June 2012. RIBA Awards for architectural excellence were presented to 50 buildings in the UK and 9 buildings elsewhere in the EU. The shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize for the building of the year will be drawn from the 59 RIBA Award winners. See the Guardian’s online gallery of 15 on the list, including the Holburne.
A RIBA spokesperson said of the Holburne's development, This intelligent project has recovered a lost connection between the city and an 18th-century pleasure garden.
Glimpsed from a distance through the trees, there is an unexpected ethereal quality to the extension to the museum. The use of materials and layering to the façade creates a sophisticated play of shadows, light and reflection beautiful and unique, creating a building of true character that is underpinned by careful historical research and analysis and very much of its site.
Alexander Sturgis, Director of the Holburne notes, We are thrilled that our wonderful new building, designed by Eric Parry Architects, has received this recognition.
A tired but beautiful site has been transformed into a wonderful new museum, giving us the space to completely redisplay our collection and put on ambitious exhibitions such as our current show of portrait sculpture. The Holburnes extension has delivered on its promise of reuniting our building with the park behind and visitors can enjoy spilling out into the garden as people enjoyed doing in the eighteenth century.
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