“Collaboration and dialogue lies at the heart of every successful project.”
Paul Williams OBE, Principal Director, Stanton Williams
Cover:
London
Royal Opera House,
Stanton Williams is a London based design studio that has gained international recognition for its thoughtful and innovative approach to sensitive sites and complex, ambitious projects.
Our portfolio has expanded from an initial focus on the arts to encompass a wide range of projects at different scales. The quality of our work has been recognised with over 150 major awards, including the RIBA Stirling Prize for the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, and the RIBA Award for International Excellence for the Musée d’arts de Nantes.
With more than 15 nationalities and speaking more than 20 languages, our studio thrives on a diverse and highly collaborative atmosphere that engages with clients and collaborators.
Under the creative direction of Principal Directors Alan Stanton, Paul Williams, Gavin Henderson and Patrick Richard we work as one studio, bringing together architects, urban designers and engineers, with specialists in exhibition design, sustainability, interiors, modelmaking, graphic design, communications and design administration.
Collaborative work with Random International, Zayed Centre for Research
Our work demonstrates a commitment to place people at the forefront of the agenda and to create sustainable, resilient spaces that respond to their cultural, social and physical context.
Continuity —
Designing for adaptability
Buildings must be able to evolve to be truly sustainable. We build for the long term, embracing the timescale of cultural and social change. Our designs allow for adaptation whilst maintaining quality and identity.
Transformation —
Breathing new life into existing buildings
Adapting our existing built fabric is increasingly urgent in today’s world. The dialogue between retained structures and new interventions is a creative opportunity that can stimulate the imagination, strengthen communities and ensure a sustainable use of resources.
Inside out and outside in —
Placing people first
Our design process recognises the tension between inside and outside, from the room to the city. The focus is never on the building form alone, but on the spaces within buildings, between buildings and, above all, the way such spaces are experienced and inhabited.
Ingenuity —
Creatively reinterpreting building types
The diversity of our work enables the crossfertilisation of ideas within the wider team.
This allows us to think laterally and challenge assumptions, leading to innovative solutions which make the best use of resources whilst unlocking social as well as economic value for both our clients and the ultimate users of our designs.
Materiality and craft —
Engaging all the senses
Buildings need to be experienced physically, not just visually. Our designs strive to engage all the senses by using materials that acquire a patina and improve with time and physical contact.
Studio culture — Celebrating people
Our studio culture celebrates people, championing equality, diversity and collaboration. We encourage contribution from all team members and nurture a learning culture. This allows each individual to thrive and the practice to continually evolve.
Collaboration —
Design as a collective endeavour
Design is an inclusive process; one that we embrace with generosity, listening and by developing a thorough understanding of the needs and aspirations of our clients and the people who will inhabit our buildings. Diverse voices broaden the debate, encouraging us to look at problems through different lenses and to explore what we call ‘the slipstream between disciplines’, which is where real creativity happens.
Process —
Thinking through making
Our design approach is hands-on. Working with sketches, three-dimensional physical models and full-scale prototypes, we explore ideas physically, which also encourages dialogue with the wider team.
“We aim to create environments that significantly improve the lives of the people who experience them, surpass expectations and make a positive impact on society.”
Robert Bird, Director, Stanton Williams
Sustainability
We believe that delivering sustainable buildings is intrinsically linked to the creation of functional, healthy and efficient spaces that delight the people who live, work, play or learn in them and the wider communities around.
Applying the principles of ‘long life, loose fit’ we strive to create buildings that age well, are resilient and can adapt to accommodate transformative change over time, thus promoting a considerate use of resources.
Designing in a Climate Emergency
As one of the founding members of UK Architects Declare we recognise that meeting the needs of our society without breaching the earth’s ecological boundaries will demand a paradigm shift in our behaviour. We are therefore committed to long-term restorative action and to creating exemplary places, that not only serve today’s needs but also those of future generations.
Retrofit and Adaptive Reuse
Extending the life of our existing building stock is key to tackling the climate emergency, as it offers carbon-efficient alternatives to demolition
and new construction. Wherever possible, we encourage the creative reuse of existing buildings and structures. We conduct a rigorous analysis of their history, limitations and potential, to make proposals that improve their performance and efficiently adapt them to accommodate new uses.
Low energy, low carbon
From the earliest stage of each design, we optimise the building form and orientation in response to the local context and climate. All of our designs adopt a fabric first and passive approach that reduces operational energy demand. The resulting, fully integrated architectural solutions deliver capital savings and are easy for users to operate.
We work with our collaborators and clients to identify materials that meet current project requirements and anticipate future uses. We always strive to maximise the wellbeing of the people who occupy the spaces we design, prioritising natural materials that weather well and deliver thermal comfort, while also considering their wider environmental impact.
Section and natural ventilation study, UCL East Marshgate
“Our projects strive to create timeless, healthy and functional environments based on the principles of longevity, adaptability, reuse and the considerate use of resources.”
Eleni Makri, Associate Director, Stanton Williams
Wellbeing and social sustainability
Social sustainability is central to every aspect of our design. We aim to develop spaces that support new and existing communities, promoting active and sustainable lifestyles in environments that encourage interaction and facilitate cultural and knowledge exchange.
Our sustainability framework
To support our aim of achieving net zero carbon life cycle emissions on all our designs, we have developed a sustainability and responsibility framework that monitors project sustainability targets and captures key data. The framework is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge, the UK Green Building Council and the Low Energy Transformation Initiative.
Throughout the development of each project, we have regular meetings with our in-house Sustainability Team to monitor targets, conduct environmental analysis and review embodied carbon.
We have extensive experience with BREEAM, Nabers, LEED and WELL, and are currently working on a number of projects that are on track for Passivhaus certification.
We have established an in-house Sustainability Think Tank that, working alongside the Sustainability Team, contributes to research and knowledge sharing across the studio, monitoring and developing our sustainable design practices and commitments on all projects, from conception, through construction and post occupancy.
Our business commitment
We are one of the first architectural practices to have set a Science Based Initiatives target and have adopted a pathway to keep our operations within the 1.5°C global warming limit aligned with the Paris Agreement. As a certified Carbon Neutral Plus organisation, we undergo a comprehensive carbon footprint assessment each year, and have committed to consistently reduce our Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions to achieve our target by 2030.
Bronze Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts
Spaces for Art and Architecture
We have extensive experience of cultural projects, coupled with international museum, gallery and exhibition design.
Arts and cultural projects remain an integral core of the studio’s work. For over 30 years we have collaborated with leading cultural venues to create spaces for display, performance and visitor engagement.
We have designed spaces for permanent collections and temporary exhibitions for many of the leading museums and galleries in the UK and abroad, including: the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence; the Getty Museum in Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum in New York; the British Museum, the Tate, National Portrait Gallery, Hayward Gallery, Barbican, Royal Academy of Arts and Victoria & Albert Museum in London; the Musée d’arts de Nantes in France and the Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin, Germany.
Through this experience, we are able to offer expertise in the critical components of a successful space including:
- Creating an identity that reflects an institution’s ethos and long-term mission with welcoming, inspirational, award winning spaces.
- Collaborative design. Using workshops with curators, artists, programmers, technicians, facilities staff to develop the brief.
- Working with a multi-disciplinary team, including film makers, AV and Interactive media specialists and digital artists.
- Knowledge of the strict environmental conditions, security and storage requirements and international standards for the loan of collections.
- Design of welcoming public front of house facilities including foyers, ticketing, retail, educational, lecture theatre, café and restaurant spaces.
- Development of effective showcase and display systems, including ceiling, walls, floor and lighting design.
- Practical, efficient back of house facilities including office, storage and object handling requirements.
- Clear circulation and wayfinding through the spaces.
- Design for future use: Built-in flexibility to ensure spaces are adaptable and can provide appropriate settings for a wide variety of different exhibitions.
- The introduction of a sustainable and energy efficient design, construction and maintenance strategy.
Collaborative work with artist Susanna Heron, Emmanuel College Cambridge
Working with Artists
Having developed our diverse portfolio from an initial focus on art exhibitions and temporary installations, collaboration with artists and curators remains at the heart of Stanton Williams’ work.
The way in which artists handle materials, give them potency and explore space and light in painting and sculpture is a constant source of inspiration. Similarly, understanding the demands of the gallery space - light, materials, scale and the movement of people - has become a language that continues to inform and enrich all our projects.
Driven by this passion for art, our portfolio today includes some of the world’s most prestigious museums and cultural institutions - from the new Musée d’Arts de Nantes and the Islamic
World Galleries at the British Museum to the recently transformed Royal Opera House and ongoing work on the new home of the Museum of London and the Clermont-Ferrand Metropolitan Area Library in France.
Many of our high-profile projects in education, healthcare and research also feature the work of celebrated artists, from the site-specific installations by Norman Acroyd, Susanna Heron and Williams Pye at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge to the artworks by Random International and Mark Titchner embedded in the Zayed Centre for Research in London.
Collaborative work with artist Susanna Fritscher, Musée d’arts de Nantes, France
Susanna Fritscher, De l’air de la lumière et du temps, Musée d’arts de Nantes, France
Selected Cultural Works
Musée d’arts de Nantes
Part of Nantes’ strategy to reinvent itself through art, this revival of a historic fine arts museum forms a new cultural hub for the post-industrial French city.
One of France’s leading fine art institutions, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes has been transformed by Stanton Williams into a democratic and welcoming contemporary museum. Now the Musée d’arts de Nantes, the museum buildings have been carefully extended, restored and reorganised to create both improved display space and better connections to the surrounding city.
Stanton Williams won an international competition for the complex project, which involved everything from architecture, interior design, public realm and graphic identity, the latter in collaboration with graphic design studio Cartlidge Levene.
The reinvented museum is conceived as a new urban quarter, with the addition of several key extensions to link the disparate existing buildings and create a coherent new promenade through the intricate site.
Ville de Nantes and Nantes Métropole
“Stanton Williams have sewn together those seemingly disparate parts into a route that now feels like a coherent, elegant and enjoyable wander through the history of art and the bones of an old port city.”
Edwin Heathcote, Apollo Magazine
The 19th century ‘Palais’ museum quadrangle has been comprehensively renovated and is now directly linked for the first time to a 17th century former chapel, the Chapelle de l’Oratoire, which is used for temporary art installations. The ‘Cube’ extension provides four storeys of flexible galleries suitable for contemporary art. Throughout all these varied galleries, each artwork, whether historic old master or contemporary artwork, is displayed in a setting carefully tuned to its needs to maximise viewer appreciation.
Further additional space includes a new archive building and an extensive basement excavation to provide new public uses including teaching and exhibition spaces, an auditorium, and restoration and conservation workshops. A new sculpture garden is at the heart of the site.
The transformation enables the institution to improve public access to the formerly uninviting museum buildings and engage anew with the surrounding city by creating new views and connections. Interventions include a more open arrival sequence, including the replacement of entrance gates and narrow steps with a new courtyard to allow greater engagement with the street.
Conceived as a monolithic volume, the Cube extension has large openings to the street to enable views into the gallery spaces from outside, and from the galleries into the city. Its entire south elevation is glazed with a suspended translucent curtain wall of marble and laminated glass. As well as filtering the strong light from the south, this façade references the time when alabaster and marble were frequently used before glass to draw natural light into Medieval churches.
Natural light is prioritised, with 70 per cent of the galleries lit by daylight. This is moderated in the Palais by a layered blind system that controls the light while retaining natural variations such as changing cloud conditions. In doing so, this recalls the lighting conditions in the artists’ studios where the works were painted.
The transformation incorporates a new passive environmental strategy including improved thermal insulation of roofs and walls. Along with more energy efficient climate controls for the artworks and other energy saving measures, this resulted in 40 per cent lower primary energy consumption than the ‘high performance’ level of the Haute Qualité Environnementale energy target, the French equivalent of BREEAM.
As well as reviving the museum’s buildings, the project has enabled the institution to reinvent itself and play a more active role in the life of the rapidly regenerating city.
“Stanton Williams knowledge of working within the constraints of the museum and their respect of the existing building make this project a key element of the cultural policy of the city of Nantes.”
Blandine
Chavanne, Former Director, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes
Royal Opera House ‘Open
Constructed over nearly three years, the regeneration of one of London’s most prestigious cultural venues delivers an opera house fit for the 21st Century.
The £50.7million transformation of the Royal Opera House (ROH) delivers world-class performance and social facilities to enhance the experience for public, staff and performers alike. In doing so, this prestigious project facilitates the ROH’s Open Up campaign to attract new audiences for ballet and opera.
Stanton Williams’ key move has been to extensively reconfigure the previously introverted ground floor to greatly increase foyer space, in tandem with a redesign of the Bow Street and Covent Garden piazza entrances. Both now enjoy greater street presence and transparency in order to encourage more visitors inside - whether or not they are seeing a performance - to visit the new café, restaurants and shop.
“Stanton Williams’ respect for our heritage, appreciation of our London context and award-winning flair has delivered us an Opera House fit for the 21st century.”
Alex Beard, Chief Executive, Royal Opera House
On Bow Street, a projecting glazed pavilion has been introduced at ground-floor level to replace the solid base beneath the much-loved Floral Hall elevation. The previously underplayed Covent Garden piazza entrance has been amplified to encourage more people to enter the enhanced foyer from the colonnade.
Combined with a new public terrace overlooking Bow Street and a refurbished Amphitheatre Terrace over the Covent Garden piazza, these entrance and foyer interventions greatly increase the opportunities for public engagement.
Throughout, Stanton Williams has created an elegant and contemporary setting finely crafted from a limited palette of traditional materials including American black walnut, Crema Marfil marble from Spain, patinated brass and polished plaster. Together, these form a calm backdrop for animation by the enhanced activities now taking place within the ROH.
In addition to the enhanced public areas, the other main intervention is the new, 400-seat Linbury Theatre on the lower ground floor. This exemplary second public performance space also serves as an artistic laboratory for the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet companies and has been created in American black walnut with purple upholstered seating.
In this logistically-complex project, Stanton Williams ensured that the famous venue remained fully operational, with not one performance missed throughout the three year construction programme.
By intensifying the use of the existing building, the Open Up project aimed to exceed Arts Council targets for a 10 per cent reduction in energy consumption (kWh/m2) over the 2010 baseline.
Designed for the British Museum, this atmospheric and convivial new setting elevates the experience of the institution’s world-class Islamic collection.
The Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World transforms the British Museum’s presentation of its Islamic collection, which dates from the 7th century to the present day.
Stanton Williams’ 620sqm gallery enables a new interpretation of this important collection, which has been relocated to two, 19th-century spaces at the heart of the museum.
The bold, pared back design creates a sense of orderliness and clarity that maximises both the impact of the objects and the gallery architecture. At the same time, the rooms are welcoming and convivial, with spaces to gather, rest and pause as visitors are guided through 15 centuries of diverse artwork.
The treatment of light, so important to Islamic architecture, is central to the design, which manipulates the natural light entering the gallery for maximum effect while still protecting the collection from direct sunlight. This is achieved through reworked roof lights, new wall openings onto a lightwell, and by opening up previously blind windows.
These new openings are moderated to create dappled light by a series of delicate and traditional filigree walnut screens. Designed by artist Ahmad Angawi, these are inspired by traditional techniques from the Hejaz area of Saudi Arabia.
Collaborative work with artist Ahmad Angawi
“It’s hard to fault something planned with such intelligence, sensitivity and rigour, displayed with a flair for visual drama that will inspire, as well as inform, for a generation.”
Alastair Sooke, The Daily Telegraph
Natural top light is filtered over large, crystalline central showcases, developed through lengthy discussions with the British Museum’s curators and conservators and containing chronological displays. This effect echoes the idea of a light-filled courtyard, with gratings used to control shafts of light to accentuate particular exhibits.
More intimate spaces are created around the perimeter where thematic displays are located, giving a subtle spatial hierarchy to the gallery. Here, wall cases are aligned with the architrave of the doors, lowering the scale of the 6m high gallery to a more intimate level. The displays are enhanced by the incorporation of new digital media, enabling visitors of all ages to gain a deeper insight into exhibited objects.
Where the two rooms join, Stanton Williams created a small temporary gallery with spaces for school groups and other gatherings to congregate. The galleries conclude with a 5 metre-high plaster wall for the flexible display of contemporary art.
Energy consumption in the gallery has been reduced through improvements to the fabric of the Grade I listed space, including a new, better insulated roof, new double-glazed roof lights, and a more efficient hot water heating system.
Designed for the British Museum, this new gallery provides a fitting setting for an outstanding collection of Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces.
Inspired by the great Schatzkammer (treasury) collections of the Renaissance courts in Europe, the Waddesdon Bequest Gallery enables a new interpretation of a collection left by the Rothschild family to the British Museum in 1898. In doing so, the 162sqm gallery revitalises one of the museum’s most historically important spaces, the Reading Room designed by Sir Robert Smirke.
Developed closely with the curatorial team, the design reflects the intimacy and material quality of the Waddesdon Manor Smoking Room that originally housed the collection, allowing the artworks to be fully understood in their historical context.
‘The elegantly restrained new setting...lets the treasures take centre stage while re-invigorating this long underused but important space.’
RIBA Journal
“We have acquired a new gallery where the Waddesdon Bequest is magnificently re-presented and the gold jewels and crystal sparkle behind glass that is itself almost invisible. It is as though we have acquired a new collection.”
Neil MacGregor, Former Director of the British Museum
Stanton Williams aimed to create an element of surprise and wonder. The design was developed from two perspectives, working from the objects outwards to understand each artefact’s display needs, and from the room inwards to understand the possibilities of the historic interior. The outcome enables the Baroque and Renaissance objects to be displayed to their full potential.
Sculptural, rhomboid-shaped showcases lead visitors around the gallery with objects suspended within. This allows visitors to both focus on the works of art and see through to the room beyond, which has been sensitively restored. The showcases engage with the displays around the perimeter of the room, with bronze panels layered in front of the original bookcases. The curatorial narrative is carefully embedded in the gallery through integrated graphics and audio-visual display.
The new gallery was made possible by the Rothschild Foundation.
V&A Ceramics Gallery
Elegant reworking of a century-old gallery to create a setting worthy of the museum’s celebrated ceramics collection.
The V&A’s collection of ceramics is one of its greatest glories, unrivalled for its richness and breadth. Stanton Williams’s redesign of the museum’s ceramics gallery creates a suitable setting for these works as part of an international centre for the enjoyment, understanding and study of ceramics.
Located on the V&A’s top floor and dating from 1909, the ceramics gallery comprises a sequence of seven varied spaces, some domed and others with glazed roofs giving abundant daylight. The reworking enhances the distinctiveness of these spaces, respecting and exploiting contrasts in spatial form and lighting to create interest. In the contemporary gallery, walls the colour of dark chocolate serve to highlight the white painted dome above. This is further accentuated by
a permanent installation by Edmund de Waal mounted on a high shelf as a frieze around the base of the dome.
A light touch restoration swept away accretions. Bespoke glass showcases with proportions that echo those of the galleries coherently link the exhibits with the spaces in which they are housed. These were developed specially with manufacturers Glasbau Hahn and were rigorously tested by the V&A’s curators.
Simple and elegant, the displays themselves examine the renowned collections in new ways. Their centrepiece is a practical area where throwing wheels and a working kiln bring the subject to life. The gallery also includes a reconstruction of renowned potter Lucie Rie’s studio.
“Your designs are perfect and everybody loves them.”
Mark Jones, Former Director, Victoria & Albert Museum
Won through international competition, this repurposing of a listed former hospital creates a major new cultural destination in central France.
Stanton Williams’s design for Clermont-Ferrand Metropolitan Library creates a literature and cultural hub conceived as an enchanting new world of books, multimedia and ideas.
A transformation of the 18th century Hôtel-Dieu former hospital and gardens, the new public building is located in the Puy de Dôme region of central France, and will provide a 11,000sqm home for the library and its collections as well as a new social forum for gathering and performance.
Year 2025
Location
Clermont-Ferrand, FR
Client
Clermont-Auvergne Metropole
Value
€31.0m
Size 11,000sqm
“The new library gives us faith in the importance and transformational power of literature and culture for our cities and communities.”
Patrick Richard, Principal Director, Stanton Williams
The key intervention is a double height, light-filled central forum, inserted as a large canopy into the horseshoe courtyard of the existing building. The translucent glass structure is envisaged as mediating between earth and sky, books and people, building and garden, historic city and the Puy de Dôme volcanic landscape.
Literally rooted in the volcanic strata of the city, the forum is animated by a subterranean gathering and 200-seat performance space.
As well as referencing volcanic craters, this space relates to the many caves and storage chambers found beneath the Hôtel-Dieu hospital.
Certified by the Haute Qualité Environnementale (the French equivalent of BREEAM), the project makes responsible use of materials including locally sourced volcanic stone and a timber engineered structure.
This highly complex scheme transforms West Smithfield’s historic market into an exciting new home for the Museum of London.
In 2016, Stanton Williams as lead architects, working together with Asif Khan and conservation architect Julian Harrap, won an international competition to transform a group of derelict market buildings into a 24-hour, world class cultural destination and a democratic arena for public life. Selected for their “innovative thinking, sensitivity to the heritage of the existing site and understanding of practicalities of creating a great museum experience,” the team has since been working closely with the Museum of London and the museum’s stakeholders (including the GLA, City of London Corporation and the local Smithfield community) to deliver the new Museum of London at West Smithfield.
One of the largest and most significant cultural schemes currently underway across Europe, the project is a showcase of adaptive reuse of heritage buildings. Targeting a minimum of BREEAM Excellent with an aspiration for Outstanding, the project adheres to the principle of ‘circular economy’– looking to reuse and repair over 70% of the existing fabric and to recycle materials where possible, aiming for 95% diversion of waste from landfill.
Plans for the museum cover the General Market building – which dates back to the Victorian era and had fallen into significant disrepair –and the Poultry Market building, a 1960s feat of engineering. Both buildings are being carefully restored to ensure that the history and character of this extraordinary part of London is celebrated and becomes an integral part of the Museum’s story telling.
“Cultural institutions like the Museum of London are not just buildings; they are the heartbeat of our city. This significant restoration project reflects our commitment to preserving the soul of the City of London, ensuring that future generations can connect with the rich history embodied in these walls.”
Chris Hayward, Policy Chairman, City of London Corporation
They will become the largest artifacts in the museum’s collection, providing wonderfully dramatic display spaces, both above and below ground, capable of hosting an extensive range of exhibitions, retail, learning activities and events, whilst also triggering the imagination of young and old.
The General Market, a building which itself is the size of an entire city block, will host over fifty shop fronts around its perimeter, lending themselves to collaborations and partnerships with external players and reinforcing the dialogue with the surrounding city. Existing between the two museum buildings will be a canopied city street owned and inhabited by the museum and acting as a major conduit into the surrounding neighbourhood.
The scheme’s impressive variety of spaces will create the conditions for a new type of city museum, which, rather than an inward-looking repository of the past, will offer itself as a shared place in the middle of London, a space for performances, installations and debates, as well as for rest and reflection.
Once it opens its doors in 2026, the new Museum of London – to be rebranded The London Museum – is expected to become one of London’s top ten visitor attractions, generating significant economic benefits and bringing over two million visitors a year to the Smithfield area. The new museum will also play a key role in the City of London Corporation’s Destination City initiative, which is transforming the Square Mile’s leisure offer to create a leading cultural destination for UK and international visitors, workers, and residents to enjoy.
“We will lead by example by bringing these historic buildings back into use, preserving 70% of the fabric overall and reducing operational carbon.”
Sharon Ament, Director of the Museum of London
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Stanton Williams was commissioned to produce a feasibility study and a concept design for the Musée des Arts Décoratifs to improve the welcome experience, wayfinding and civic presence of its 19th century Paris home.
The world-renowned museum, dedicated to decorative arts and design, is located in the Louvre’s western wing, known as the Pavillon de Marsan. Drawing upon the symbolic location at the historic heart of Paris, between the famous Rue de Rivoli and Jardin des Tuileries, Stanton Williams’ proposal aims to reinforce the museum’s distinct identity.
New ceremonial arched entrances in traditional bull-eye blown glass transform the two opposite façades at Rue de Rivoli and Jardin des Tuileries, giving the museum a strong civic presence. Facing each other, these signature glass features create an intriguing play between concave and convex, distortion and reflection to establish a dialogue between two contrasting spatial conditions – the linear Rue de Rivoli and the large enclosed Jardin des Tuileries.
Client
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Internally, a large processional ramp with built in seating invites visitors from the garden and the street, into an atmospheric triple-height welcoming and orientation zone. A series of strategic interventions aim to unify the fragmented Pavillion de Marsan, while improving the visitor journey between its two – previously poorly connected, main halls. A sculptural “passarelle” floating over the grand lobby conceptually stitches together the two pieces of the building, while offering visitors new and memorable routes. Inspired by the craftsmanship of fashion and jewellery on display, this undulating metal bridge is a dramatic piece of architecture at the heart of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
Using the building as the canvas for art and ingenuity, digital signage provides elegant wayfinding solutions, while bespoke pieces of furniture adapt to flexible use and invite people to linger and find respite.
Japan: Courts and Culture Exhibition, The Queen’s Gallery, London, UK
Japan: Courts and Culture
The Queen’s Gallery
Japan: Courts and Culture is the first show to bring together the Royal Collection’s remarkable holdings of Japanese works of art, to tell the story of more than 350 years of diplomatic, cultural, and artistic exchange between Britain and Japan.
Our design created six exhibition rooms, all meticulously choreographed to enhance visitor understanding of each individual artwork, as well as conveying their wider context and significance. Each of the objects on display, from samurai armour sent to James I in 1613, to a Coronation gift for Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, was carefully considered and presented to the visitor for optimum effect.
The key challenge was creating a suitably intimate setting for the appreciation of these delicate and precise Japanese artefacts within the rich neoclassical galleries designed by John Simpson. Stanton Williams chose to ‘dissolve’ the gallery environment’s neoclassical elements by designing a series of screens, walls and displays, that skilfully deployed lighting and a restrained palette of colours – black, white and red – to encourage the eye to focus on the objects.
Japan: Courts and Culture is at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 12 March 2023.
“...an exquisite, intricate, truly diverting parade of treasures.”
The Daily Telegraph
We have worked with the celebrated British artist, designing six of her solo shows, each time exploring the crucial relationship between artwork, exhibition space and viewer.
One of the UK’s greatest living painters, Bridget Riley is perhaps best known for her abstract black and white paintings, which came to be defined as Op Art. We have been collaborating with her since 1992, designing six bespoke exhibition installations, including her most comprehensive retrospective to date, at London’s Hayward Gallery in 2019.
Each, finely-nuanced installation is the result of a close dialogue with the artist. The design process is grounded in a thorough understanding of the lighting, scale and nature of the gallery space, together with an awareness of the way viewers move through the space, and where they may pause to contemplate each work. It is an intense, highly rewarding, design journey.
“When you’re working with an artist, you’re sometimes engaging on an unspoken level because words aren’t enough.”
Paul Williams OBE, Principal Director, Stanton Williams
For the 2019 Hayward Gallery exhibition, the design process involved analysing the spatial requirements of more than 200 works including 50 key paintings, and then working with Bridget in her studio with the aid of a large 3D model of the Hayward Gallery to develop the optimum arrangement for the different gallery spaces. These artworks ranged in scale and type from huge wall paintings to small graph paper preparatory studies, each presenting their own display challenges.
Our first design for Bridget was 27 years earlier at the same venue. For this, the installation included the creation of a four-sided, chapel-like room within the upper galleries, designed to hang a specific group of four works for optimum dialogue with each other, as well as the viewer.
In both of these installations, Stanton Williams aimed to celebrate the strength of the Brutalist gallery as well as Bridget’s work. At another distinctive venue, the modernist De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea designed by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, we created the gallery setting for Bridget Riley: The Curve Paintings 1961—2014, featuring more than 30 of her paintings exploring the curve motif.
We also designed a major Tate Britain exhibition of Bridget’s work in 2003, and two gallery installations at Berlin’s Galerie Max Hetzler in 2013 and 2020.
Working with art installations and artists such as Bridget has made a significant contribution to the design approach of our studio. The aesthetic and demands of the gallery space, such as light, materials, scale and movement of people, has become a language that we have been able to extend into our architecture – from our earlier Issey Miyake boutique interiors to the major civic and cultural buildings that we are now working on.
Giacometti: Pure Presence
National Portrait Gallery
Giacometti: Pure Presence at the National Portrait Gallery, designed by Stanton Williams, is the first ever exhibition to solely consist of portraits by the 20th-century artist Alberto Giacometti.
Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti is regarded as a leading modernist and surrealist sculptor, and the exhibition comprises over 60 works including paintings, sculptures and drawings, spanning the range of the artist’s career.
Stanton Williams worked with the National Portrait Gallery and curator Paul Moorhouse to design an exhibition which celebrates Giacometti’s work and highlights his obsessive evocation of human presence through a range of styles and subjects.
The exhibition design seeks to convey the quality of the artist’s own working environment and the changing nature of natural daylight, using backlit, abstracted clerestory elements and varied lighting within the gallery spaces.
Traditional Chinese architecture inspired the design of this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of rare Chinese Paintings, staged at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
Faced with more than 70 works created over a 1200 year period, Stanton Williams took an architectural approach to the design of the exhibition V&A Masterpieces of Chinese Painting.
Inspired by the traditions of Chinese architecture, the design incorporated selected elements such as courtyards, thresholds and views across and through walls. The simple and elegant design allowed visitors to get close to the precious objects on display.
Organised chronologically, the exhibition was split into six distinct courtyard sections. These included some of the earliest surviving Chinese paintings as well as other exceptionally rare pieces loaned from international collections.
“The breathtaking nature of the paintings on show, allied to the curatorial approach, which strikes an equilibrium between scholarship and storytelling, is a triumphant recipe”
“A show of perpetually positive delight.”
Each courtyard had an individual atmosphere that set the stage for the objects shown within. Whilst the first sections included smaller works and were designed to create a sense of intimacy, later sections included more generous spaces showing larger works. Views across the courtyard spaces allowed visitors to get a holistic perspective of the sizeable objects on display.
Courtyard spaces were connected by thresholds, which emphasised a sense of transition when visitors crossed from one section to the next. The design responded to two main types of artwork: hanging scrolls displayed vertically and hand scrolls displayed horizontally. Hanging scrolls were shown within the walls of the courtyard spaces, carefully lit without reflection to ensure maximum appreciation of these very tall objects. Hand scrolls, including a dramatic 15m long scroll, were displayed in freestanding display cases, leading the visitor around the exhibition to read the scrolls from right to left. Low-level lighting and fully flat display surfaces also ensured the delicate works were conserved.
With the exception of section graphics panels, the exhibition design was kept monochrome, allowing the often colourful artworks to take a deserved centre stage.
Stanton Williams created tailored displays for more than 150 artworks in this Royal Academy exhibition of bronze art, meticulously presenting each object for maximum audience engagement.
Staged at the Royal Academy in London, the Bronze exhibition celebrated artworks spanning 5,000 years from across the world and in all shapes and sizes. Stanton Williams’ challenge was to enable visitors to fully appreciate each of these important pieces. At the same time, the practice also needed to create a harmonious overall setting that reconciled the immense variety of weight, scale and patina among the 176 exhibits, many of which had never been seen in the UK before.
Organised thematically over 11 galleries, the 1,700sqm exhibition celebrated the remarkable historical, geographical and stylistic range of bronze as an enduring medium. Our approach was to carefully study each individual artwork to best understand how it needed to be displayed in order to create the optimum relationship between viewer and object, paying particular attention to the style and intensity of lighting levels in this artificially-lit exhibition.
“Bronze is miraculous. The metal, and the exhibition. You can’t ask more of a blockbuster.”
The Guardian
This relationship between viewer and object was the impetus for the entire exhibition design, informing everything from the overall scale and atmosphere of the galleries to the detailed design of the showcases.
For some of the exhibits, for example, we painted a white backdrop to bring the scale of the setting down a little, and installed a long table plinth so that objects were raised up and held within the cocoon of this white plane. In doing so, they were offered up to the viewer in a more effective and direct way, with viewers looking up to contemplate them. Other exhibits called for a different display treatment, perhaps enshrined within a carefullydetailed showcase. Whatever the approach, each setting sought to enable the viewer to gain the best understanding possible of these remarkable objects.
The exhibition offered a unique exploration of the varied artistic practice working with bronze, combining not only artworks but an exploration of the complex processes involved in making bronze. Display cases were built off-site and installed in a challenging three week installation, with one especially heavy exhibit alone – Perseus - taking six people two days to move.
“Bronze is all about amazement... The exhibition is entirely given over to wonder and it is all the more wonderful for it.”
The Observer
Seduced: Art & Sex from Antiquity to
Designed for London’s Barbican Gallery, this provocative exhibition of sexually explicit art featured more than 300 works spanning 2000 years.
Stanton Williams’s design for Seduced: Art & Sex from Antiquity to Now avoided any preconceptions of what an installation on this subject might look like. Instead, the uniquely stimulating collection of objects was presented sensitively and with very little fuss, allowing each object to speak for itself and have its own dialogue with the viewer.
Intended to generate debate amongst its visitors and the wider public, the temporary exhibition of sexually explicit art through the ages included works by Picasso, Rodin and Warhol.
Stanton Williams maximised the potential of the double height space at the heart of the Barbican Gallery by creating a tall central structure rising the full height of the two-level space. As well as drawing the eye to the upper level, this structure housed discreet chambers on the ground floor where the more intimate works in the collection were displayed.
Colour was threaded through the show to heighten the visitor experience of entering and exiting spaces. Throughout the installation, views of later work were juxtaposed with earlier pieces to create a visual dialogue of tastes across the ages.
“The exhibition design by Stanton Williams brings clarity and focus to what must have been an unusually difficult show to install.”
The Daily Telegraph
In the summer of 1995, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral both mounted their own displays designed to commemorate 900 and 100 years respectively of existence as flagships of British religious life. The treatments of each were quite different.
Stanton Williams concentrated on the no-frills Church of England principles in managing to encapsulate almost 1000 years of history in a compact display designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. Located in the adjacent church of St. Margaret’s, 900 Years: the Restorations of Westminster Abbey, was designed with whitepainted false walls, white muslin and a false floor, concealing all its original features. The exhibits were displayed abstractly on a wide shelf and cantilevered from screens.
“Stanton
Williams’ approach to exhibition design is based on the architectural principle of creating a certain quality of internal space conducive to contemplatin, and then placing the objects in that space to be interpreted freely by the viewer.”
Clare Melhuish, Design Week
An exhibition of treasures from the British Museum and National Museum of Mexico displayed the arts of past civilisations including the Aztecs and Mayans, with over 170 sculptures in stone, jade and clay. Winning the Minerva Environmental Design Award, the dramatic lighting and architectural elements created a strong sense of drama for each object on display. The Independent commented that the exhibition “deals extremely skilfully with the difficult problem of how to present the art of a largely mysterious, geographically and temporally distant network of societies. It is a show with a conscience… Paul Williams’ fine exhibition design is largely responsible for this...”
A large exhibition, this occupied the whole of the Hayward Gallery in 1984. Immediately faced by a long arcade of rounded arches, the central arch opened across the concrete ramps to reveal a giant photograph of the solid piers of the nave of Durham Cathedral. Displays of fragments of stone, manuscripts, ivories, metalwork, stained glass, textiles, seals and coins were assembled in such a way that they illuminated the combination of decorative and architectural ideas from one medium to another.
“Paul Williams has an inspired understanding of Romanesque architecture. He uses its elements in the display unobtrusively and elevates the fragments of sculpture and capitals in a way that makes them architecturally comprehensible.”
Colin Amery, Financial Times, 1984
Bridget Riley Exhibition, Hayward Gallery, London
Selected Awards
Henge, London
2023 Lighting Design Award - Visitor Experience & Museum Exhibition
Eddington Key Worker Housing
2021 RIBA Stirling Prize - Shortlist
2021 RIBA Neave Brown Award for Housing - Shortlist
2021 RIBA National Award
2021 RIBA East Award
2014 WAF AwardFuture Masterplan
Zayed Centre for Research
2021 RIBA National Award
2021 RIBA London Award
2021 Civic Trust Award
2021 AJ Architecture AwardHealth and Wellbeing
2021 WAF Award - HealthHighly Commended
2021 The Concrete Society Award - Highly Commended
2021 Building Better Healthcare Award - Best Healthcare Development UK
2020 New London Architecture AwardCaring Prize
2020 Architecture MasterPrizeBest of Best Award
2020 Architecture MasterPrize - Healthcare Award
2020 AIA UK Excellence in Design AwardLarge Projects
2020 European Healthcare Design AwardHealth and Life Science Research
2020 European Healthcare Design AwardInterior Design and Art
2020 European Healthcare Design Award - Design for Health and WellnessCommendation
2020 European Healthcare Design Award - Design Under 25,000sqmCommendation
Cambridge Judge Business School
2020 Cambridge Design and Construction Award
2019 RIBA National Award
2019 RIBA East Award
2019 Civic Trust Award
2019 Civic Trust Award - Michael Middleton Special Award
2018 Shueco Award - Education Project of the Year
Royal Opera House
2020 Civic Trust Award
2020 Civic Trust Award - Michael Middleton Special Award
2017 American Architecture Prize - Interior / Exhibition
2017 Blueprint Award - Best Public Use Project with Public Funding
2017 Apollo Award - Museum Opening of the Year
Berrow Foundation Building, Lincoln College, Oxford
2017 RIBA National Award
2017 RIBA South Building of the Year Award
2017 RIBA South Award
2017 AIA UK Excellence in Design Professional Award
2016 Civic Trust National Award Commendation
2016 Civic Trust Regional Award
Waddesdon Bequest Gallery
2016 RIBA London Award
2016 Civic Trust Regional Award
Hackney Marshes Centre
2016 London Planning AwardBest Building 5 Years On
2013 AIA UK Excellence in Design Award
2012 RIBA Award
2012 Civic Trust Award
2012 New London AwardSport and Play
2012 RICS Award LondonHighly Commended, Community Benefit
2012 Concrete Society AwardCertificate of Excellence
2012 Hackney Design Award
Fitzroy Park House
2015 RIBA London Award
King’s Cross Square
2015 RIBA London Award
2015 IALD Award of Excellence
2015 Civic Trust Award
2015 Lighting Design Award
2015 Camden Design AwardsBest Public Space
Britten-Pears Archive, Aldeburgh
2014 RIBA National Award
2014 AIA UK Excellence in Design Award
2014 Civic Trust Award
2013 Suffolk Coastal Quality of Place Award
2013 Brick Award - Best Public Builidng
UAL Campus for Central St Martins, King’s Cross
2014 Camden Design Award
2013 Camden Business AwardBest Large Development
2013 Civic Trust Award
2013 AL Light & Architecture Design AwardCommendable Achievement
2012 RIBA Award
2012 WAF Award - World’s Best Higher Education and Research Building
2012 London Planning AwardMayor’s Award for Planning Excellence
2012 AIA UK Chapter Excellence in Design Award
2012 RICS Award LondonRegeneration
2012 AJ100 Building of the Year
2012 Building Award - Public Building Project of the Year
2012 WAN Award - Education
2012 New London AwardEducation
2012 Concrete Society AwardOverall Winner
2012 LABC National Building Excellence Award - Best Education Development
2012 LABC London Building Excellence Award - Best Education Development
2012 BCI Award - Major Building Project of the Year
Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge
2012 RIBA Stirling Prize
2012 RIBA National Award
2012 RIBA East Regional Building of the Year Award
2012 Civic Trust Award
2012 Lighting Design Award
2012 LABC East Anglia Building Excellence Award - Best Educational Building
2012 Natural Stone AwardHighly Commended
2011 WAF Award - World Learning Building of the Year
2011 Concrete Society Award - Overall Winner and Building Category
2011 David Urwin Design Award - Best New Building, Commended
2011 Construction News AwardHighly Commended
Bourne Hill, Salisbury
2011 SCALA Civic Building of the Year Award
2011 RIBA Regional Award
2011 BCO Award
2010 Salisbury Civic Society Award
Chilver Hall, Cranfield University
2010 Wood Award - Highly Commended
2011 LABC Central Building Excellence Award - Best Educational Project
2011 LABC Central Building Excellence Award - Best Partnership with a Local Authority
Anchor Store, Bristol
2009 RIBA Regional Award
2009 European Copper in Architecture AwardDiscretionary Award for Innovation
Bournville Place, Birmingham
2009 RIBA Regional Award
2009 Civic Trust Award
2009 BCO Award
Stringfellow Hall, Cranfield University
2009 Civic Trust Award
2009 Times Education Leadership and Management AwardOutstanding New Student Residence
Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
2008 RIBA National Award
2008 RIBA Regional Award
2008 D&AD Award
Tower Hill, The Tower of London
2006 Natural Stone Landscaping Award
2005 RIBA London and English Heritage Award - Building in an Historic Context
2005 Royal Fine Arts Trust Building of the Year Award – Creating a Beautiful Space
2005 RIBA London Urban Space by Design Award
2005 RIBA London Building of the Year
2005 RIBA National Award
2005 Structural Steel Design Award
2005 The Green Apple Award for the Built Environment
2005 IStructE Structural Heritage Award
Compton Verney Art Gallery, Warwickshire
2006 Excellence in EnglandSmall Visitor Attraction of the Year
2005 Civic Trust Award
2005 Civic Trust Special Award for Culture & Regeneration
2005 BDI Industry & Genius Award - Conservation
2004 RIBA Award
2004 Europa Nostra AwardHighly Commended
1998 Celebration of Excellence in Design Award - Stratford on Avon District Council
1997 Stone Federation Award
Casa Fontana, Lugano, Switzerland
2004 RIBA Worldwide Award
Whitby Abbey Headland Project, Yorkshire
2003 Europa Nostra Award
2003 RIBA Award
2003 Civic Trust Award
2002 RIBA White Rose Award
2002 RICS Award
Wellcome Trust Millennium Building, West Sussex
2001 RIBA Award
2001 Design Sense
Sustainability Award
2001 Concrete Society Award
2001 West Sussex Heritage Millennium Award
2000 Civic Trust Award
Four Brindleyplace
2000 British Council for Offices Award – Best of the Best
1999 Built in Quality Award –Regional, National and Best of Best Award for Commercial Workplace Building Category
Old Royal Observatory, Greenwich
1995 Europa Nostra Award
1994 National Heritage Award
60 Sloane Avenue Building
1996 RIBA Award
1997 British Council for Offices Award
1996 Civic Trust Award
1995 Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Design Award
The Gas Hall Gallery
1994 RIBA Award
The Triforium Gallery
1992 Museum of the Year Award
The Design Museum Galleries
1990 Civic Trust Award
Issey Miyake: Men
1991 D&AD Silver Award
1988 D&AD Gold Award
Our Clients include:
AB Development
Argent LLP
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Arts Council of Great Britain
Aga Khan Development Network
Baylight Properties
Belgrade Theatre Trust
Berkeley Homes
Birchall Properties
Birkbeck College, University of London
Birmingham City Council
Braeburn Estates Limited Partnership
British Council
British Land
British Museum
Britten-Pears Foundation
Brockton Capital LLP
Brockton Everlast
Brunel University
Cadbury Trebor Bassett
Cambridge Judge Business School
Canary Wharf Group plc
City University
Classic FM
Clermont-Auvergne Metropole
Clore Duffield Foundation
Coin Street Community Builders
Compton Verney House Trust
Cranfield University
Crown Estate
Derwent London
Design Museum, London
Dorrington Properties
Eaton College
Emmanuel College
English Heritage
Gatsby Charitable Foundation
Greater London Authority
Great Ormond Street Hospital Childrens’ Charity
Grosvenor Estates
Guildhall School of Music
Hammerson
Hayward Gallery
Historic Royal Palaces
Issey Miyake International
ING Real Estate
King Edward VI School
Land Securities
La ville de Geneva
Lincoln College Oxford
London Borough of Brent
London Borough of Camden
London Borough of Hackney
London Borough of Havering
London Development Agency
London Legacy Development Corporation
London Underground Ltd
Marks & Spencer
Metro Imaging
Milligan
Museum of London
Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
National Film & Television School
National Gallery
National Maritime Museum
National Portrait Gallery
Network Rail
Olympic Delivery Authority
Ronson Capital Partners
Rother District Council
Rothschild Foundation
Royal Academy
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Royal Institute of British Architects
Royal National Theatre
Royal Observatory, Greenwich
Royal Opera House
Royal Society of Arts
St Paul’s Cathedral
Selfridges & Co
Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung Berlin
Silvertown Partnership LLP
Soros Foundation
South Bank Board
Tate Gallery
Thornfield Properites
Transport for London
Truro Cathedral
Universtiy College London
University of Brighton
University of Cambridge
University of the Arts London
University of Padua, Italy
Victoria & Albert Museum
Ville de Nantes, France
Westminster Abbey
Wiltshire County Coucil
Winchester Cathedral
Winchester College
“What sets Stanton Williams apart is their approach. From initial enquiry through to post project evaluation the team maintain their appetite for collaboration, communication and commitment to delivery.”
