Review of Extension to Chelmsford Museum of Local History, designed by Simon McCormack of Thomas Ford & Partners

1. New Chelmsford Museum
'Towards An Old Architecture'
Prohibitively expensive to join, publicly denigrated by the government, proclaimed 'dead' by
arguably its most important periodical; the architectural profession is in trouble. The heroic
master builders; Mies, Aalto, Le Corbusier, Kahn we are told, are anachronisms, architects
should forget about them and Instead, consider a new incarnation as 'spatial agents', shop
window dressing and lamp-shade arranging their way to a better world.
How did it come to this? It's difficult to see past 'that speech' of 1984 as the pivotal moment.
At that point, architects were challenged to abandon their ivory towers and engage with a
more inclusive experience of architecture. Venturi & Scott-Brown's Sainsbury extension to
The National Gallery was an interesting start to a conversation focused on how architectural
discourse might engage with history and collective cultural experience in this country.
Arguably, the current crisis is rooted in a reluctance on the part of the architectural profession
as a whole to continue that discussion in a serious way.
There have of course been exceptions; the likes of Stirling, Eric Parry and Caruso St-John,
have all sought to pick up the discussion from where Venturi & Scott-Brown last left it. Now,
Thomas Ford & Partners have added their voice to this important debate with a substantial
extension to Chelmsford Museum.

2. Built as a family home in 1865 for a successful industrialist and set within a large park, most
would recognise the Grade II Listed Oakland's House as the kind of Victorian suburban
residence that is now found all over the south east of England, only much larger and more
splendid. It's projecting bay windows, stone rather than stucco and mounted on low stepped
plinths, might once have been doorways and its campanile and stone Doric entrance portico,
give it an 'Italianate' air.
This beautiful building has a chequered history. In the 1920s, the short wing of the original 'L'
shaped residence was demolished, leading to a new southern elevation. Chelmsford
Museum relocated there in 1930, and the Essex Regiment Museum- accommodated in an
ugly, black brick structure, built onto the house's southern façade- in the 1970's.
It wasn't until 2006, the same year in which Chelmsford Borough Council decided to demolish
the black brick box and re-house the Regimental Museum and important items from the
historic Marconi factory, in a new high quality extension, that the value of the house was
officially recognised and it was listed.
The client sought to ensure that the proposed extension would not diminish this local
treasure, with a perceptive brief. In addition to asking for a 'first class' building that would
'complement' the existing house, the brief also stipulated that it should be 'stand alone' yet
'physically linked' to the house, whose local importance was about to be enhanced by the
relocation of the Marconi items to it. Between the Marconi factory and the Essex regiment,
just about everyone in Essex would have a familial link to the newly extended museum.

3. There are a couple of ways that the deft combination of separation and attachment called for
by the brief, could have been achieved. The 'transitional lobby' such as employed by Venturi
& Scott-Brown at the National Gallery, is one. The link bridge, as employed by Carlo Scarpa
at Castelvecchio, Verona is perhaps the only other.
At Chelmsford, project architect Simon McCormack, has used both of these approaches, but
given the required size of the new extension in relation to the existing building, (the gross
internal area of the extension exceeds that of the existing house), this was uncharted territory.
Considerable skill was going to be required to make it work architecturally.
Le Corbusier proclaimed, 'the plan is the generator' and this dictum proves true here. The
plan of the extension is virtually a mirror image of that of the existing house, a related DNA
from which a contiguous but independent architectural language would be summoned.
In the existing house there is an Oak panelled hall which contains it's principal stair, also of
Oak but with ornate ironwork. This stair winds upwards, hugging the sides of the square hall
and terminating in a generous landing, the arrangement giving rise to a double height space
that is lit, rather dimly, by a stained glass roof-light. Surrounded by other rooms, the hall is
dark and 'womb-like'.

5. There is also a 'hall' in the new extension, but it couldn't feel more different, Reached from
the old stair hall via corridors that once served the house's demolished short wing, it is a
dramatic double height foyer/atrium, the 'transitional lobby' mentioned earlier. At ground floor
level, you arrive at it's York stone floor. Here you find the main reception and Marconi
exhibits. On the first floor, you are taken onto a bridge (a la Scarpa), of steel, in-laid Oak and
frameless glass. 88 years after Le Corbusier compared the Parthenon entablature to the
Delage front-wheel brake, we are 'asked' to enjoy the modelling of this bridge's rolled profiles
and precision engineered connections, as we enjoy the 'handicraft' in the old staircase. We
duly oblige.
To it's side, the atrium is bounded by the external wall of the house- it's lower half, scarred
from the removal of the black box, now soothed, with a cement 'slurry' balm. To the front and
back of the atrium, double height walls of glass allow light to flood in and generous views out
to the park and beyond. This space is 'outside' as well as 'inside', the landlocked stair hall's
modern incarnation and polar opposite.
The rest of the new building maintains the clever dialogue with the original. Thus, the
domestic entrance portico of the old house with its doubled-up columns finds itself again,
scaled up, in the massive brick entrance portico of the extension, the new public entrance for
the expanded museum. This portico is doubled up too, addressing both the driveway to the
building and the expansive grassed area in front of it in a two-way configuration. Private
residence becomes palazzo and park becomes piazza, the effect heightened by the
employment of a partial coat of arms, salvaged from the site of an 18th century villa that once
stood nearby, now mounted in a panel of lime render built into the brick wall of the new
building.

6. I have mentioned the brick. It is Wheat coloured and it dominates both buildings, but is
disposed differently; structural English bond in the old building with necessarily tall and
narrow apertures and in the new extension, stretcher bond, draped around the building's
structural frame like a mantle, gathering in folds or parting at the architect's will. Experiencing
the two 'bonds' at the same time makes them obvious and lends the brick a certain animation.
Internally the stretcher bond gives way completely to reveal the steel skeleton that holds it up
and externally, the cool pre-patinated 'Rheinzink' roof flows downwards, abandoning its
pitched form and taking up other shapes, reinforcing the impression of drapery and
complementing the warm brick perfectly.

7. The bay windows of the house find their way into the new extension too but appropriately
enough, on the 'piano nobile' rather than on the ground floor. Two generously proportioned
apertures for the grand, timber floored education suite and,– within the embrace of the
double portico, the Regimental display window, it's steel tension supports serving as modern
'mannered orders' , bestow a 'soupçon' of filigree upon the overall composition, a proxy for
existing carved ornament that rescues it from brutality. The shadow and modelling that
accompanies the draping and folding of the brick beneath the education suite windows plays
a similar role, the configuration- inspired by Michelangelo's Palazzo Capitoline-a vital
intermediary between the civic and intimate scales.
In the best traditions of modernism, 'mass culture' is represented along with 'high art', the
extensive areas of glazing which make for such well lit interiors, manifesting themselves
externally as shop windows. Through them, exhibits and the people viewing them can be
seen, making the new museum 'feel' accessible in a way that the existing house never was.
Indeed, one of the exhibits, a lone sentry whose uniform could almost be for sale, looks back
out towards the park/piazza, from the Regimental window, epitomising both the strategy of
interconnection and the juxtaposition of the 'high' and the everyday. The billboard strip light
used to illumine the coat of arms at night, seals the deal.

8. Here in Chelmsford, modern architecture has played it's part in the provision of the
rootedness and continuity with history, that is essential for the healthy development of
community and of architecture itself. The fact that locals, some expressing an avowed dislike
for modern architecture, have received this sophisticated and eloquent building so
enthusiastically, testifies to it's excellence and hints at how important a genuine
understanding of, and sympathy for the past, coupled with a studied command of
contemporary language is, to the making of architecture that is both great and relevant. Le
Corbusier both understood and taught this. If architects are to reverse their decline, this is the
vocation they must rediscover.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, west elevation. Photo by Paul Riddle
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, east elevation. Photo by Paul Riddle
Castelvecchio, Verona by Carlo Scarpa, detail of underside of link-bridge.
Castelvecchio, Verona by Carlo Scarpa, elevation showing bridge link.
The National Gallery, Sainsbury Wing by Venturi & Scott-Brown, 'transitional lobby'.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, transitional lobby containing link bridge. Photo by Paul Riddle
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, scanned page from AJ Specification.
Oakland's House, existing stair hall, photo by author.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, link bridge. Photo by Paul Riddle.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, atrium floor. Photo by Paul Riddle.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, addressing park. Photo by Paul Riddle.
Palazzo Senatorio, Michelangelo, addressing Campidoglio, Rome.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, detail of west elevation. 'Extended' portico, coat of arms, Regimental window, brick,
and zinc. Photo by Paul Riddle.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, zinc cladding to west and south elevations. Photo by Paul Riddle.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, detail of zinc cladding. Photo by Paul Riddle.
Oakland's House, bay window. Photo by author.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, windows to education suite. Photo by Paul Riddle.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, detail of west elevation. 'Extended' portico, coat of arms, Regimental window, brick,
zinc, strip light. Photo by Paul Riddle.
Chelmsford Museum of Local History, shop windows; main entrance and atrium. Photo by Paul Riddle.