Context 154 - May 2018

C O N T E X T 1 5 4 : M A Y 2 0 1 8 47 tourism. But the pre-19th-century town is of the haphazard morphology needed to fulfil the functional demands of its denizens. The building and subsequent continuous adaptation of its houses, cellars and lofts is a lesson in functionalism, with external appearance tending to be a consequence of the development process rather than a driver of it. The unifying townscape features are a relatively wide palette of local materials, mostly in whites and greys, and, in recent years at least, the impact of many artistic hands as both clients and designers. One can also see how the fine grain and intricate and accretive geometries of old St Ives appealed to a group of artists with constructivist leanings; in addition to the famous quality of the light, that is. The work of Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo is evident in the gallery. What is not is their association with the architect Leslie Martin, who was their collaborator in the 1937 book Circle: international survey of constructivist art , and whose subsequent influence on British architecture was considerable – on London’s South Bank, and in Oxford and Cambridge in particular. How one designs for new functions with large volumes in fine-grained historic environments has long been a vexed question. Francis Golding’s Building in Context for English Heritage and CABE in 2001 attempted to provide some ground rules using 15 carefully chosen case-studies. Tate St Ives was not one of them but it well might have been, as it is a much-acclaimed building and was the Twentieth Century Society’s featured building for 1993 in its 100 Buildings 100Years exhibition three years ago. The gallery was the result of an imperative (the need to celebrate the St Ives School of artists), an opportunity (a derelict gasworks overlooking the sea), and the sheer grit and determination of a large body of people to deliver a buildable and fundable project. It is a textbook example of how to harness the resources necessary to deliver a major enhancement of a historic place, its community and its economy. The recent extensions to Tate St Ives, adapting the gallery for today’s needs, are a reflection of the general pattern of continuous adaptation evident everywhere in the town.What we see today is a thoughtfully remodelled version of the original gallery of 1993 by the original architects Eldred Evans and her husband David Shalev, with an adjacent but seamlessly attached extension by Jamie Fobert. Evans and Shalev’s careful contextual analysis pays reference to the former gasholder on the site with its entrance rotunda and curved internal spaces, but it is the progression of internal spaces rising from the entrance up the cliff that is so neatly redolent of the streets of St Ives. By contrast to Evans and Shalev’s modestly sized galleries, Fobert’s extension is very big. But because much of its volume has been excavated from the cliff, it sits comfortably with the earlier parts of the gallery and nicely reflects the transition, at cliff-top level, between the very fine- grained lower town and the airier feel of the nearby Victorian villas. Far less successful is the new housing adjacent, which has too much of a generic seafront housing feel to be truly comfortable in this specific setting. There is a tendency among architectural critics to the use of ‘-isms’, often overlapping in their origins and influences, to pigeonhole buildings under review, and this can be troublesome when two or more are required to do a building justice. Tate St Ives has already been treated to a few but not as yet, I think, to that of constructivism. Through the context of its realisation, it may be more entitled to this label than to some others. Constructivism took Leslie Martin in a very specific architectural direction, the International Style, but the additive architectural methodology evident here is also a child of the same influence. At any rate, it seems to me certain that the constructivist leaders of the St Ives School in the 1940s would heartily approve of the gallery’s carefully composed internal geometry and placement of its exterior elements. There are many sides to the art of heritage conservation. Attention to detail ranks high among them, and it is from this that criticism of heritage as an inhibitor of new development tends to emanate. So it is vital that we also promote the wider picture in which the historic environment is an important facet of our social and economic environment as a whole. St Ives as a place, and Tate St Ives within it, are important lessons in letting our past help shape our future.What results is a fascinating example of how, in a single place, Virginia Woolf’s sequence of room – house – land – sea is presented for us to experience for ourselves. It is no wonder that so many people wish to, and do, come to St Ives to share this. As each of us experiences spaces and places in a unique way, the popular appeal of a place is a good indicator that its place-makers, whether they be ancient or modern, or few or many, have got it right. Learning lessons from the past is vital for the creation of places of the future. Not easy, but vital. James Caird, chair@ihbc.org.uk