Building and exhibition layout: Sainsbury Wing compared with Castelvecchio, by Kali Tzortzi,

Reading aligned with lecture: 

Modern Materials and Technologies: Williams & Tsien, Scogin & Elam, Arup, Sustainable Design. 18/03/2015


Personal summary of reading: Building and exhibition layout: Sainsbury Wing compared with Castelvecchio, by Kali Tzortzi,(2004)

I found this reading interesting and relevant to one of my current design studio projects; showing how controlling and restrictive architecture is designed to how people move and direct them selves around spaces. This articles compares the layout of the Castelvecchio Gallery against its additional Sainsbury wing that was added at a later date with its use strictly placed in its brief.

The Sainsbury wing appears in a grid like manner with horizontal and vertical planes with intersections and openings allowing the flow of people of explore the spaces. Because of its layout people cannot just do one lap of the gallery and have experienced all of its rooms; it allows people to interweave between the rooms and they will have to go through spaces more than once to experience all of the art work in the gallery.

In comparison the Castevecchio is spatially more restricted and people have fewer variations of movement between the rooms in this gallery; this results in better-defined routes.

This article was interesting to see the results from a physical study of movement and how reststricing people creates better defined routes, ensuring in this context that all the rooms are visited. However I do appreciate that the Sainsbury wing allows the audience to explore, without getting confused and I think I would feel more freedom within that gallery. I will use the knowledge I have learnt from this reading and apply to my future studies.