Cerulean Science

Architectural Review, The, Nov, 2000 by Peter Davey

An extension to a well loved London museum has a totally different and more magical atmosphere from the conventional galleries through which it is reached.

The Wellcome Wing of the Science Museum is a major extension to one of London's best loved institutions. It is quite unlike the Victorian building from which it projects into the backlands of South Kensington. The other museum galleries are mostly devoted to exhibiting objects in traditional ways; many of these spaces are jolly good, particularly the approach gallery to the new wing which has been brilliantly redesigned by Wilkinson Eyre Architects. But the Wellcome Wing sets out to do something very different. Using largely interactive exhibits, it is intended to display the Making of the Modern World in exhibits which are largely interactive, and cover life sciences, as well as the artefacts to be found elsewhere in the museum.

So the new space has been made in a very different way from a set of conventional galleries. It had to be very adaptable, as the exhibits will change more rapidly than conventional ones. It had to have very carefully controlled lighting levels, partly because many of the screens and optical devices need low background luminance. And it had to provide its own drama, for the steam locomotives, rockets, beam engines and hovering aeroplanes (which make many of the traditional galleries unforgettable) are unavailable to the Wellcome.

Richard MacCormac's basic idea is essentially simple. He wanted to create a 'theatre of science', filled with 'lumiere mysterieuse' in which visitors and what they look at could both be actors. You approach through a relatively small opening from the lofty space of the gallery redesigned by Chris Wilkinson and his team. Deep blue light beckons you in past the orange portal. A vast and mysterious space is revealed, dark and blue, with strong accents of white or warm light over particular exhibits or events. The drama of progress into Wellcome is enhanced by a great curving canopy which sweeps upwards into the space as you move forward and reveals its huge size (exaggerated perhaps by the lumiere mysterieuse). Three exhibition terraces hover in the space. Each is rather narrower than the one below, so that the front edges of the terraces echo the curve of the great canopy which faces them, further emphasizing the height of the place. A long thin escalator rises to the right, piercing the curved canopy. This, i t turns out, is not the main way of reaching the terraces, but the approach to the IMAX, which is inside the swooping mesh curve. To the right of the orange portal are the stairs and lifts which get you up to the first terrace.

You are delivered by both to a quite narrow corridor in which a brightly lit almost-industrial metal floor hangs between two dark blue walls and delivers you to the entrance to the terrace. Similar arrangements are created for the upper terraces, and the whole makes a tall, almost Piranesian backstage for the theatrical exhibition terraces which span across the central volume to another vertical circulation bank, similar to the one you have ascended in, but without the lifts. There is talk of introducing some exhibits and artworks into these tall thin spaces, and must say, think the spaces would be improved: though dramatic, they are pretty austere.

Not so the terraces, where Casson Mann, working with museum experts and specialist exhibition designers, have made the shows. The first terrace is devoted to the world of nature, and its interaction with modern technological culture. Here, the dominant actors are what the designers call 'bloids', bulgy zoomorphic forms on spindly legs, with silver bodies beautifully made of smooth aluminium. Like metallic Teletubbies, they have screens in their flanks, and whether you like the forms or not, they are certainly very popular, particularly with children. The second terrace is devoted to the present and future of technology, with devices which resemble abstracted printing machines displaying electronic wonders. The top terrace is as yet less densely occupied, with large saucer-like objects on which several people at once can play strange games, answering arcane questions like 'Should men have babies?'

Wilkinson Eyre were the architects of the ground floor layout (with the exhibition designers of course). By themselves, these architects have contributed a delightful cafe, in which light flows up from the table tops, appropriately warming the blue for a place where you eat and drink.

From below, the IMAX, the terraces and their contents seem to float in blue space. The illusion is partly generated by the fact that the trusses, which form the structure of the terrace plates, bear onto steel gerberettes. Concrete columns in the side walls of the main volume carry these pivoted steel brackets, the outer ends of which are restrained by vertical ties in the external walls of the whole building. By effectively cutting down the span of the terrace plates, their depth is reduced, further adding to the weightless, soaring atmosphere.