Issue 39 Sept 23 - Journal - Page 64
Roofglaze at the V&A
As a Grade 1 listed building with millions of visitors a year, the V&A Museum Kensington,
London is a site of significant heritage architecture. The museum is part way through an
ambitious development programme. Rooflglaze describe the projects below.
Replacement roofs at The V&A Museum
As a Grade 1 listed building with millions of visitors a year,
the V&A Museum Kensington, London is a site of
significant heritage architecture. On a site covering over
12.5 acres with 145 galleries it’s the world’s leading
museum of art and design, holding collections spanning
over 5,000 years of human creativity in virtually every
medium. Originally known as the South Kensington
Museum, it was re-named the Victoria and Albert
Museum in 1899 when Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone to the new red brick and stone facade. It now
boasts some of the finest Victorian Buildings in Britain.
The museum is part way through an ambitious development programme. Over 85% of the museum’s public
spaces have been transformed, improving both access and
the display experience for visitors.
Working in conjunction with Facade Engineering and
glass experts Eckersley O’Callaghan, Roofglaze was
contracted by Coniston Construction to design and install
a replacement glazed barrel vault roof for the museum’s
iconic Cast Court 46B. It was to span the vast exhibition
space 25 metres below and provide the galleries with a
sustainable, thermallycontrolled environment appropriate
for visitors and exhibits alike.
The Heritage Context
The Cast Courts, opened to the public in 1873, consist of
two glazed sculpture galleries and are home to more than
60 of the finest 19th-century reproductions of Italian
Renaissance monuments. For the Victorian public, these
casts provided a fascinating insight into the skills of
Renaissance sculptors.
Cast Court 46B houses one of the earliest and most
famous casts is of Michelangelo’s David, constructed by
the Florentine cast-maker Clemente Papi in the 1850s.
It’s more than five metres tall and was created from
hundreds of sections of plaster mould taken directly from
the original.
The Problem
The existing 1970s single-glazed laminated glass roof had
begun to fail. There was corrosion in the Georgian wired
glass and the Courts suffered from both water ingress, heat
loss and over-heating. Access to clean the existing roof
was problematic and the galleries below had poor light
quality as a result.
Below, the National Art Library
