Cornwall County Council and Tate announced today that Jamie Fobert Architects have been selected for the Phase Two Development of Tate St Ives.
Jamie Fobert (42) is a Canadian who studied in Toronto before coming to London in 1987 where he worked for David Chipperfield for nine years. He set up his own practice in 1996. Their work on Anderson House, London, won the RIBA 2003 Award for Building in a Historic Context and the Manser Medal for best one-off house in 2004. The practice recently won its first major public competition with designs for the refurbishment and extension of the Kettle’s Yard Gallery in Cambridge. Other projects include the display installation for The Upright Figure at Tate Modern in 2002, the exhibition design for From Constable to Delacroix at Tate Britain in 2003, designs for Aveda stores, and a house for Nicole and Nadav Kandar in North London.
Tate St Ives Phase Two Development will feature a new building on part of the Barnoon Car Park above the existing gallery. It will provide additional flexible space for temporary exhibitions, an education space, reception, offices and storage. The new and existing buildings will be linked to allow visitors to move from one to the other.
The new development will provide a dedicated Learning Centre at the gallery for the first time to serve local schoolchildren and provide a regional centre for excellence in visual arts education. It will also enable the gallery to organise exhibitions all year round without the need to close for up to 7 weeks per year for reinstallation.
Over 2 million people have visited Tate St Ives since it opened in 1993.
After more than ten years of successful operation, the building needs modification to meet visitors’ needs which, at peak times, are currently running at more than three times original estimates. The aim of the project is also to build the out of season numbers to boost St Ives as a year round destination.
The selection of the architect followed an open invitation in August which attracted interest from over 50 architectural practices. Managed by the RIBA, the process involved interviews with a shortlist of 7 architects, who made presentations to a panel of judges which included Sir Nicholas Serota and Peter Wilson from Tate, the director of Tate St Ives Susan Daniel-McElroy, RIBA architectural adviser Sir Jeremy Dixon and representatives from Cornwall County County Council and Penwith District Council.
The project is being delivered through a partnership between Cornwall County Council, Penwith District Council and Tate.
Bert Biscoe, Executive Member for Corporate Support, Cornwall County Council said: “The Tate development will benefit St Ives because it will be the trigger for beginning to sort out parking and future access to the town. It is vital that Cornish children can experience the Tate and the world of art first hand. It is also important that St Ives can build up all year round trade and the ability to prepare new exhibitions without shutting up shop for seven weeks a year will do this. We want to ensure that we are building a future for the whole of St Ives through the Tate project. Success deserves success.