The Novium Museum | Keith Williams Architects

The Novium Museum, Chichester’s most recent new cultural building, opened to the public on 8 July 2012. It is located in Tower Street, Chichester nearby the city’s Grade 1 listed medieval cathedral, and was built to designs by the architect Keith Williams. The Novium has been constructed on the site of a public car park, beneath which archaeological remains of a series of Roman baths were discovered in the 1970s. The baths, part of Roman Chichester (Noviomagnus Reginorum) date from the Flavian period (1st Century AD) and the fragments of the hypocaust are the most substantial Roman extant remains within the city walls. Keith Williams has built the museum above the baths which have been incorporated in situ into the main entrance gallery as a permanent exhibit, as an intrinsic part of the museum. Further galleries over a further two floors have been designed to provide flexible space for permanent and temporary exhibitions to be displayed, alongside education spaces, restoration, research and staff areas. The Novium sits within the city’s north-west quadrant and has been built at precisely the point that historic buildings in that area begin to stop and their grain and type change fundamentally. Keith Williams’ designs respond to that shift through both its material of pale cast stone surfaces which echo the colour hues of the city’s primary buildings the cathedral, market cross and cathedral tower, and also in the way he has created a clearly contemporary building. The new Museum fine example of contemporary public architecture created within a mature historic city. The Novium’s collection includes over 1,000 geological specimens (primarily fossils), 8,500 social history artefacts and items of ephemera, 3,600+ photographs and in excess of 300,000 archaeological finds, describing the story of Chichester District from geological times onwards. Elements of these are displayed in the galleries’ changing museological programme. The Novium achieved National Accreditation in April 2014 and has won many prestigious architectural awards including : RIBA National Award RIBA Regional Award Civic Trust Award, Michael Middleton Civic Trust Award for the Best Building in a Conservation Area, RICS Regional Award. ARCHITECTS STATEMENT Originally appointed to carry out the project after winning the 2007 RIBA competition when his designs were selected ahead of a strong architectural shortlist which included Caruso St John, van Heyningen Haward, Panter Hudspith, and Jamie Foubert, Keith Williams has spent the past 5 years working on the design and realisation of the Novium project. The city plan of Chichester is characterised by a ring of partially intact enveloping Roman and Medieval walls, within which the older city is segmented into 4 roughly equal quadrants by a cruciform street pattern centred upon the medieval Cross at the crossroads. The new Museum’s site on Tower Street, sits in the north-west quadrant, running north from West Street the city’s western arm, close by the medieval cathedral with its freestanding medieval bell tower. Chichester’s urban character changes markedly once north of West Street. The immediate vicinity of the museum site was irrevocably altered during the 1960s and 1970s, when many of the historic buildings that once formed the street scene were swept away. Consequently, few buildings of evident architectural significance survive, beyond those listed on Tower Street adjacent and opposite the Museum site, and perhaps the circular 1960s library. The site itself was until this project, a brownfield car park beneath which lay the remains of the city’s Roman baths. Williams’ response to this fractured context attempts to establish a new urban grain by creating a unified block, centred on the Museum (and integral but later residential project) with a new set of buildings along both Tower Street and Woolstaplers (the street immediately north of the site). The new museum marks the junction between the historic cityscape and the more fractured urban grain to the north. The Museum, the first element to be completed, straddles the Roman baths which date from the Flavian period (69 - 96 AD). These are displayed in situ in the street level entrance gallery, as an intrinsic part of the Museum. The building also contains permanent and temporary galleries, collection storage, workshop, research and library spaces, and a learning room, in addition to public facilities. The new public galleries are stacked vertically on 3 levels and are linked by a processional stair culminating with view across the city to the cathedral from the Cathedral window, at the building’s highest level. The idea of processional stair, which in this case hovers above the remnant baths, is a recurrent theme in our work, recalling the Unicorn Theatre, Wexford Opera House and the Marlowe Theatre among many. A slot between the flights brings a numinous light onto the baths and allows glimpses back over the baths from vantage points during the ascent through the building. The city’s set piece public and religious structures such as the market cross, cathedral and bell tower are all constructed in pale stone in a city that is otherwise brick or render, establishing a hierarchy of materiality which has informed the surfaces of the new Museum. As a consequence the Novium has been clad in pale reconstructed stone, establishing its architectural and cultural connection with the tradition of Chichester’s grander public structures, and an architectural accent amongst Tower Street’s otherwise Georgian brick buildings. The proposed residential development (yet to be realised) is seen as fulfilling a supporting architectural role to the museum, and is composed of red brick with a set back attic storey consistent with the typical housing model of the city. Both the Museum and the residential scheme take a three storey parapet level consistent with the general scale of the Georgian buildings which define the east side of Tower Street. At its northern end, the Museum’s main elevation incorporates a square from turret to introduce variety and accent to the street scene, and to signal the Museum from both West Street and the approach from the city walls to the north. The main façade is carefully composed and incised to respond to the subtly undulating street scale of the adjacent listed Georgian buildings, whilst the square form turret provides accent and balance to the composition. The elevation is composed using a proportional system including the Golden Section giving a precise order to its abstract expression. The interior surfaces of the museum are made is high quality fair faced concrete. The architects spent much time researching and testing the concrete mix options before arriving at the final specification. Silver granite aggregates were used with silver grey granite fines, the surfaces of which were brushed to achieve a subtle sparkle to the concrete surfaces.