Extract from report by Ron Herron and Brian Harvey

Aims
To produce a solution so that the existing and the new buildings will form a related whole within the setting of the park. Establish an architectural hierarchy. Glass sheet, cladding panel, circulation towers, a gallery, the extension, the ‘whole’, with sufficient strong characteristics and clarity of organisation to unite the old and new.

Principles
Provide connections between new service stack, administration unit and new and existing galleries at all levels. Use of artificial lighting of a general and localised kind throughout, with occasional windows giving an outlook on to the park, to allow for maximum flexibility.
Use of ramp, stair and lift for public circulation, allowing free choice of route. Use of sculpture courts and terraces as additional gallery spaces for outdoor exhibitions.

Architects’ Journal, 29th April, 1964, p. 962

Ulster Museum Extension Competition Result


The competition for the design of new museum buildings attached to the existing Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland, has been won by Francis Pym who receives the first prize of £1,200. The second and third prizes were amalgamated and awarded to three entrants as follows: John C. Randall, £500; Frank B. Harvey and Ron Herron, £300; Charlotte Baden-Powell and Alberto Ponis, £300. The three commended designs were entered by Gordon Bowyer; Robin Clayton and M. E. Martin; and Napper, Errington, Lee, Collerton, Barnett, Allott. The assessor was Sir Leslie Martin who chose the finalists from a total entry of 83 designs. We illustrate here the winning scheme and show briefly aspects of the designs by the remaining five finalists. The designs give a fascinating variety of answers to the difficult problem of joining a new concept to an existing exercise in classicism, itself the result of a competition in 1912 and never completed.

Assessor’s Report


This competition produced a good entry: eighty-three designs were submitted. The main problem was, of course, the difficult one of relating the new building to the existing museum in a manner which would allow the whole to work as a single unit. This involved also the problem of designing a new building which was bound to be different in style from the old one, so that it not only formed a satisfactory piece of architecture in itself but, with its neighbour, produced an acceptable total entity both externally and internally. This difficult problem has resulted in an interesting series of proposals and on the whole the standard of the submissions was high, but although in a number of schemes there appeared to be workmanlike and sometimes ingenious planning, the main problems described above clearly presented difficulties to many competitors. From the designs submitted it appeared that there were three possible ways of attacking the problem. These were: 1 to attempt complete fusion of the old and new buildings in plan, section and elevation (schemes 73, 12 etc); 2 to relate the buildings in plan but to form a separating court (schemes 4 and 38) or a light link between them (scheme 35) as seen from the approach across the park. In these schemes the two units therefore read as related blocks; 3 to design the new building with vigorous modelling so that it creates the maximum contrast with the old block (scheme 33 and 16).

Schemes in each one of these categories have come into the list of designs awarded premiums or commended, and any one of these approaches might have produced the winning design. The design selected has, however, to make a satisfactory museum. …

Scheme 16 (Frank Brian Harvey and Ron Herron). From the point of view of the control and articulation of internal space and directness of planning this is one of the interesting submissions. Each part of the new building is clearly expressed. Internally the space is built up into an impressive volume. Externally the separate gallery units, staircase towers, lift towers etc produce a cluster of forms rising out of grassed mounds and terraces. There seem to be problems of connection between goods lift and some parts of the galleries. The vigorous modelling that arises from the articulated plan, as the block plan demonstrates, is a good start. But externally the modelling, which is also elaborated on section, is carried to such length that the small museum begins to achieve its scale of a much more complex organisation. The total cost is above the target figure but could be kept within the acceptable margin.

Architects’ Journal, 29th April, 1964: pp. 958-964,
[incl. images and other competition entries.]


The Ulster Museum competition has produced at least six entries of a standard to re-establish the tottering esteem of the competition system. The problem was very difficult, since it entailed completing the classical winner of a competition held in 1912. One cannot help envisaging a new Foreign Office building designed to this standard.

The assessor, Sir Leslie Martin, recognized three types of solution: 

(1). The attempt to integrate the new design with the old;

(2). Integration of the plans but the establishment of a clear break on elevation;

(3). Reliance on contrast between old and new.

The winner, Francis Pym (method 1) planned his addition as an ascending spiral. Externally he has produced a pattern of horizontals subtly in scale with the old building, and plans to mix the concrete to match the colour of the existing stone. Inside he intends to use concrete blocks both for partitions and as shuttering to the structural walls. Dark ceilings will produce a simple pattern.

The second prize was shared between three entries all elevationally more exciting than the winner. John C. Randall made a clear division between gallery, storage and administration areas, with the individual spaces three-dimentionally expressed on elevation. Frank B. Harvey and Ron Herron echoed the verticality of the classical façade by means of magnificent drums enclosing the various spaces, and delineated their lifts and stairs as towers. Charlotte Baden-Powell and Albert Ponis did far the best by the existing building, without conceding a jot of the modernity of their own design. They carried on the existing cornice line to complete the cube, and extended the background plane. Whereas the rustications and orders appear in the existing façade as decoration applied to this skin, it is the voids that indicate the spatial content of the new building. They have also made a very successful attempt to relate the form of the park outside to their interior planning.

Three other schemes were commended with good reason; Gordon Bowyer’s framed box, a striking essay in classicism 1964 by Robin Clayton and M. E. Martin, and a modern scheme by Napper, Errington, Lee, Barnett, Allott, that managed to repeat some linear characteristics of the old museum, though not its cornice line.

Architectural Design, vol. 34, p. 260