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New Spaces-York Art Gallery Project an Update – Lorna Sergeant

After a very damp May work has progressed with increasing speed at York Art Gallery.

June and July have proved to be productive months with the help of the fabulous sunshine works have not been hampered by the weather.

Old roofs have been stripped, new felt and glass panels have been installed to the Victorian roof of the secret gallery.

There’s also a palpable feeling of dramatic change to the gallery space when you enter the gallery.

There is an evident flow to the ground floor exhibition rooms as new doorways and routes through are established and you gain a real sense of the art gallery’s symmetry as the building takes shape. This is mainly due to the works that have been going on in the first floor areas.

Two whole new gallery spaces have been created. The Victorian gallery space is now taking shape and the new exhibition space above the South gallery is breathtaking even in its partially constructed state.

Together these two new galleries will become the Centre of Ceramic Art (CoCA). Highlights from the collection will be displayed in a new mezzanine gallery, which will reveal the gallery’s beautiful Victorian architectural features for the first time since the 1950s.

Works will also be displayed in a new Upper South Gallery (above the current South Gallery) which will make use of the height of the Victorian building. Combined this will add some 450m² of high quality gallery space.

 

In the meantime our contractors Simpson York limited are not the only ones occupying the building. Rest assured the art gallery pigeons are making their presence known too, leaving their imprint in a freshly laid concrete slab and making use of discarded scaffold bungee ties to build a rather comfy high tech nest!

Talk about home to roost!