The Sainsbury Centre is an

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

and museum located on the

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. The building, which contains a collection of world art, was one of the first major public buildings to be designed by the architects Norman Foster and

Wendy Cheesman Wendy Ann Foster, ''née'' Cheesman, (1937 – 15 January 1989) was a British architect and co-founder of Team 4 and Foster Associates. Career Team 4 was an architectural firm, established in 1963 by architecture graduates Su Rogers (''n ...

, completed in 1978. The building became grade II* listed in December 2012.

Design

The Sainsbury Centre building was opened in 1978. It was designed between 1974 and 1976 by the then relatively unknown architect Foster (now Lord Foster). According to Chris Abel, the building exemplifies Foster's early work of "a regular structure embracing all functions within a single, flexible enclosure, or 'universal space'" where "the design is all about allowing for change, internally and externally." The Sainsbury Centre also demonstrates Foster's characteristic work methods of "design development", or "integrated design". It is situated on the western edge of the university's campus, beside the River Yare, and also houses the School of World Art Studies and Museology. Foster said of the building "A building is only as good as its client and the architecture of the Sainsbury Centre is inseparable from the enlightenment and the driving force of the Sainsburys themselves and the support of the University of East Anglia." 5181650234 9ab891b722

The main building is sited on sloping, turfed ground, and consists of a large

cuboid In geometry, a cuboid is a hexahedron, a six-faced solid. Its faces are quadrilaterals. Cuboid means "like a cube", in the sense that by adjusting the length of the edges or the angles between edges and faces a cuboid can be transformed into a cub ...

clad Cladding is an outer layer of material covering another. It may refer to the following: *Cladding (boiler), the layer of insulation and outer wrapping around a boiler shell *Cladding (construction), materials applied to the exterior of buildings ...

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

structure. One face is almost entirely glazed, with the prefabricated skeleton clearly visible. Internally, the museum gives the impression of being one vast open space, lacking any internal divisions to interfere with the interplay of natural and artificial light. Services, lighting, toilets and maintenance access are housed in triangular towers and trusses, and between the external cladding and internal aluminium louvres. In 1988, ten years after its opening, the entire cladding had to be replaced, the aluminum panels having deteriorated beyond repair. By the late 1980s, the collection had outgrown its accommodation, and Foster was asked to design an extension. Rather than simply extending the existing

structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

as had been envisaged 15 years earlier, it was decided to look below ground. The sloping site allowed for an enlarged

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

to emerge at a curved glass frontage overlooking a man-made lake (an echo of the nearby 13th century Norfolk Broads). There is little clue of the extent of the new wing, except when viewed from the position of the lake. The crescent wing was built by

Anthony Hunt Associates Anthony James Hunt (22 June 1932 – 16 August 2022), familiarly known as Tony Hunt, was a British structural engineer of numerous world-renowned buildings, with a career spanning from the 1950s until his retirement in 2002. As a leading propo ...

and opened in 1991.

Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection

In 1973,

Sir Robert Sainsbury Sir Robert James Sainsbury (24 October 19062 April 2000), was the son of John Benjamin Sainsbury (the eldest son of John James Sainsbury, the founder of Sainsbury's supermarkets) and along with his wife Lisa began the collection of modern and ...

and Lady Lisa Sainsbury donated to the university their collection of over 300 artworks and objects, which they had been accumulating since the 1930s. The collection has since increased in size to several thousand works spanning over 5,000 years of human endeavour, including pieces by Jacob Epstein,

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

(numerous sculptures can be found dotted around the grounds of the university),

Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo to see his family and ...

, and Francis Bacon, alongside art from Africa (including a 'Fang Reliquary Head' from Gabon and the Nigerian 'Head of an Oba'), Asia, North and South America, the Pacific region, medieval Europe and the ancient Mediterranean.

Filming Location

In June 2014, the centre was used for filming several scenes of the 2015 motion pictures '' Avengers: Age of Ultron''"Avengers: Age of Ultron being filmed at UEA"
'' Norwich Evening News'', 13 June 2014. and '' Ant-Man''.

References

Bibliography

* Hooper, Steven (ed.), with photography by

James Austin James Austin may refer to: Sports * Jim Austin (baseball) (born 1963), former baseball pitcher * Jim Austin (rugby league), New Zealand rugby league player * James Austin (judoka) (born 1983), English judoka * James Austin (American football) (19 ...

(1997).
Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection
' (3 vols.). New Haven and London: Yale University Press

External links

*
Architect Foster and Partners web page about the building
{{authority control Buildings and structures completed in 1978 Museums in Norwich Musical instrument museums University of East Anglia University museums in the United Kingdom Art museums and galleries in Norfolk Foster and Partners buildings Art museums established in 1978 1978 establishments in England Asian art museums in the United Kingdom