Page 60 - Studio International - May June 1975

Museum for the Burrell Collection

Pollok Park, Glasgow

Architect: Barry Gasson in association with Brit Andresen

The building will house the that many of the objects in the collection intervene in that experience.
Collection which Sir William Burrell be protected from daylight, yet the woods The Collection is arranged on the
presented to the Corporation of Glasgow. and park offer the opportunity not only of ground floor. A perimeter walk forms a
This consists of tapestries, stained glass, a pleasant experience for the visitor line of reference and enables the visitor
stone arches, panelling, furniture, silver inside, but also, as a context for display, to enjoy the park and woods and to
and glass from medieval and renaissance of juxtaposing art and nature. experience a selection of the major
Europe, pottery and bronzes from The building of necessity places objects. Movement inwards will reveal
Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome, carpets together objects whose relationships and the rest of the Collection.
from Persia, Turkey, and India, and method of contact were never intended. In general we wish to create a variety
pottery, porcelain, bronzes and jades How does one display a stone portal of opportunities for display. In a
from China. Of these the collection of which was once a doorway and is now a collection of this size there will
200 tapestries is the most notable. Sir piece of sculpture, which was once obviously be a basic order for arranging
William also formed an important outdoors and is now indoors ? What is a the objects so that they can be
collection of 17th, 18th, and 19th-century piece of stained glass that once had comprehended, yet if there is a variety of
paintings. location and message, and is now seen places in the building the quality of
The site for the building is a gently with the eye closer than ever before ? place might suggest the location of an
sloping field enclosed by fine trees, How does one display objects of one object instead of order. Thus we hope
situated in Pollok Park, the grounds to epoch in a building that denies many of we can generate informality and
Pollok House, 3 miles south west of the qualities of that epoch ? How does one surprise, and that the building will
Glasgow. resolve the relationship of objects that assume some of the characteristics of
The housing of the Collection presents are very explicit to a building that tends house as well as museum, as was Sir
many paradoxes, which become the not to be, and how does one, oneself, William's wish. •
buildings concern and direction. relate to objects when of necessity B. Gasson
The demands of conservation require protection from light, air and touch
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