Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich
Having to collect the second replacement Pure DMX-60 from Norwich on Saturday afternoon, we thought we’d soak up a little culture in the process. The Sainsbury Centre of the Visual Arts on the UEA campus was where we ended up.
One of around a hundred university museums open to the public in the UK, the Sainsbury Centre is as interesting for the building itself, as for the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection contained within it. Indeed, the aluminium, glass, steel, and plastic structure holds a strange and bewildering fascination for fans of modern architecture.
Opened in 1978, it was designed by Lord Foster, and was his first public building, pre-dating his later Stansted Airport terminal by three years. A prefabricated modular structure, the long building appears to be one vast space inside, with a structural skeleton, devoid of structural pillars, and bathed in both natural and artificial light.
It’s all very cleverly done, with the internal surfaces of the building appearing to ‘hang’ from the roof. A partially-underground ‘extension’, the Crescent Wing, opened in 1991 and solved the problem of much-needed office, storage, and workshop space.
The last major additions to the original site were an additional gallery, studio area and shop, which were all placed off a central corridor in 2006, linking the 1978 and 1991 buildings internally.
Although not making for great pictures, reflecting the early February sunshine in its two glazed ends and inviting the outside world in, the view of the study area and the natural world outdoors almost makes you want to get out your books again. The café was equally light and bright, too, and an atmosphere of calm pervaded across the interior space, and the entire site as a whole.
With the surrounding campus outside providing a very different (with a European) influence, we felt as if we were trapped in a strange and alien world - but, a world in which we spent a surprisingly enjoyable afternoon.