The Wrong Solution

The news that Sir Terence Conran has once more dipped into his pocket and given the Design Museum on London's South Bank £17.5million has not surprisingly been greeted with much jubilation. It's a most generous gift, especially when he's already endowed the Museum with £50million which pretty much paid for setting it up in the first place some 20 years ago in its current riverside location. This additional gift will go a long way in helping to fund the Museum's move to larger premises. 

Despite having a prestige location, the converted banana warehouse near Tower Bridge has not proved large enough for the Museum's aspirations and the Trustees have been looking for an alternative site for some time. It had been hoped there would be room to locate next to Tate Modern, but such has been the success of the former power station conversion that the Tate felt that they couldn't spare any space in their modern extension. So the search continued and eventually it was suggested that the iconic but empty former Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington would be a suitable home. But I'm not at all sure.    

Finding new uses for old buildings, especially when they are 'listed' is never easy and inevitably involves a degree of compromise between the integrity of the original and the requirements of the new. If economics and politics get involved the cause of conservation can be made that much more difficult. Built in 1962, this stunning building with parabolic copper-clad roof welcomed many a school trip over its lifetime and until changing tastes and circumstances supposedly rendered it surplus to requirements, it closed for good in 2002.

The ungrateful Commonealth owners of this by now unloved but grade II* listed building then proceeded to try and bully Tony Blair's government into passing a special Act of Parliament the sole purpose of which would have been the 'delisting' of the building. This would have allowed demolition and thus sale of the cleared site for lucrative residential development. Happily Mr Blair felt able to resist the Australian Prime Minister's threats and eventually a property company bought the site from the owners.

As is quite common in such cases, they almost certainly paid too much for the site and as a result require considerable new build in order to recoup their outlay. Although now supposedly 'saved', unfortunately the developers plans for the site always entailed demolition of the administration block and the erection of flats in its place, leaving the iconic main structure for alternative use. Not surprisingly, in order to convert this part of the building for museum use will inevitably require considerable internal modification.

In essence, the requirements of the design museum are for a plain white box into which they can insert great design, but this is clearly in major conflict with what they have been given. In my view the result will be unsatisfactory both in terms of preserving the integrity of the original design and in creating the right sort of space for the proposed new use. It was a great idea but it's going to end as a dogs breakfast and the Design Museum needs to keep looking for a more suitable home. As for the Commonwealth Institute, the search for a more appropriate use might just take a bit longer that's all.