Hayward Gallery

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For other uses of "Hayward", see Hayward (disambiguation).

Hayward Gallery, London

The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the South Bank Centre, situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. Its location places it alongside several other major arts venues, including the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall/Purcell Room and the Royal National Theatre.

The Hayward opened on 9 July 1968 and its powerful massing and concrete construction makes it a good example of Brutalist architecture. It was designed by the Department of Architecture and Civic Design of the Greater London Council, and is named after Sir Isaac Hayward, a former leader of the London County Council, the GLC's predecessor. Joanna Drew was the founding Director. Ralph Rugoff is the current Director (as of mid 2006).

The Hayward hosts three/four major temporary exhibitions each year and does not house any permanent collections. From 1968 to 1986, the gallery was managed by the Arts Council of Great Britain but management then passed to the South Bank Centre. The gallery is also the base of the Arts Council's National Touring Exhibitions programme and until 2002 the Arts Council Collection. Unusually for a British gallery receiving state funding support the Hayward has an admission charge. The gallery exhibition policy embraces visual art from all periods and past shows have included the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Edvard Munch and the French Impressionists but recently the programme has tended to concentrate on surveys of contemporary art.

It has held two surveys of works from the Arts Council Collection: British art 1940–1980 and How to Improve the World: 60 Years of British Art.

[edit] Design

The design brief was for five gallery spaces, two levels of indoor galleries and three outdoor sculpture courts (the massive concrete trays at the upper level) in order to house the Arts Council collection. The intended outdoor display of sculpture against the background of the London skyline appears to have been impractical and the sculpture courts are unused.

The two levels of the Hayward open to the public are linked by a pair of cast concrete staircases. These staircases, and lavatories at an intermediate level, are accommodated in a concrete box in between the eastern and western parts of the indoor galleries. One of these staircases also runs down to street level with access (closed) to Belvedere Road; the other extends down into the private entrance foyer on the north side of the building. The almost hidden private entrance is located below the foyer and external walkway on the north facade, near the overhanging Purcell Room auditorium.

The building originally had a very small main foyer area with cast aluminium doors similar to those of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. In 2003 the foyer of the building was remodelled with a larger glass-fronted foyer, designed by the Haworth Tompkins architectural practice and including a new oval shaped glass pavilion designed by Dan Graham above a new cafe in the projecting former office space at the east end. A shop has been added earlier inside the north-west end of the lower gallery.

The two upper galleries can use natural light from the glass pyramids on their flat roofs. Three concrete towers run vertically through the middle of the structure and contain the passenger lift, service lift and service duct. The kinetic light sculpture, which responds to wind force, on the roof of the passenger lift tower, was retained from an exhibition in 1971.

The roof terrace at the south end and linking bridge to the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer building is unfortunately closed to the public, which makes impossible some of the more interesting pedestrian circulation opportunities of the original design.

The walkway above Belvedere Road with access from Waterloo Bridge widens to the west, following the line of Belvedere Road and accommodating the stairs to the external terrace, but following a different line from the upper gallery walls. The angled plan shape of the concrete sculpture tray in the south corner reflects the change in angle of the site between Waterloo Bridge and Festival Square. In this way, despite its seemingly uncompromising form, the building responds to its site.

The south-west corner of the building at street level is occupied by an electrical switch room. A car park occupies most of the lower ground level. A plant room occupies the lower level at the east end, above the car park, with a great concrete exhaust stack by Waterloo Bridge.

The high-level walkway system which linked the Hayward to the Hungerford Bridge area was partly removed in 2000, leaving a curious truncated end on Festival Square, and poorer access from Festival Square. This is exacerbated by the positioning of the car park and loading bay entrances, a legacy of the original 1960's design ideas about vertical separation of pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Among the tricks of the building is the different lines of the walls at ground level and walkway level on this facade, which reconcile the differing axes of the Hayward and the Royal Festival Hall.

[edit] Future

The South Bank Centre and Arts Council are considering the future of the Hayward building, together with the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room which stand between the Hayward and the River Thames. A proposed scheme selected from an architectural competition, designed by Richard Rogers, in the early 1990s would have involved covering all three buildings in a great wave-shaped glass roof, which would have linked the Royal Festival Hall to Waterloo Bridge. This did not proceed due to its reliance on a high level of lottery funding and likely high cost.