Holburne extension start date imminent
The Holburne Museum is within days of announcing a start date for its controversial extension scheme.
The project, which museum trustees say will ensure the attraction at the head of Great Pulteney Street has a bright future, attracted scores of objections but was eventually given permission by Bath and North East Somerset Council.
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The museum is now waiting for final planning paperwork to be signed off by the authority.
It has won a grant of nearly £5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the expansion work, which will create extra display space for its collection.
The building work will cost around £10.6 million but the museum is aiming to raise a total of £13.6 million so that it can ensure that the running costs of the new facilities are covered.
The director of the museum Dr Alexander Sturgis, who gave a talk at the University of Bath yesterday, said: "The Holburne has been working hard behind the scenes for a long time and it is very exciting to have reached the moment when all of our careful plans are about to become a reality."
The contentious glass design at the rear of the landmark building has been created by Eric Parry Architects, which he said had recently received "much critical acclaim for the beautiful restoration of St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square".
He added: "We are looking forward to working with them to create a new Holburne for Bath and the region."
The museum is closed ahead of the refurbishment work.
It is scheduled to be finished in 2010.
Comments
by T, Bath
Thursday, February 26 2009, 1:37PM
“It's a shame Eric Parry Architects failed to learn from their success in London. The crucial thing about the acclaimed extension of St Martin-in-the-Fields referenced here was that it was all placed underground. Thus a Grade I listed building remained visually unaffected and yet sensitively extended in a very modern way. Sadly though Bath DCC remains old fashioned in its architectural views, thinking that a spanking new hyper-modern extension is just the trick to 'enhance' the Holburne. Wrong. If this kind of solution was the best one, they would have done so in Trafalgar Square. They didn't because everyone knows that the addition of a modern extension to St Martin-in-the-Fields would have been quite obviously ludicrous.
At the end of the day, the St Martin-in-the-Fields project is a tacit acceptance that this kind of approach is not an appropriate solution. If it isn't appropriate in London, it's not appropriate anywhere.”