Dean Art Gallery and Masterplan, Edinburgh
1995-1998

Terry Farrell and Partners successfully collaborated with National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) to transform Thomas Hamilton's three-storey Grade A-listed orphanage into a new HQ and administration centre for the NGS and to provide storage space for extensive works of art previously stored at The Mound.

In order to utilise the Dean to maximum capacity, the idea arose of including galleries for temporary exhibitions in the design, together with a visionary exhibition space to house an extraordinary collection bequeathed by sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi and other surrealist and dadaist artworks. Replacing the much-used 'white box' formula with an intense arrangement of colours and materials, TFP have designed a series of surrealist-inspired spaces using devices that aim to intrigue: mirrors and enfilade doors, wall breaks, surprise portholes, changes of level and a dramatic double-height space filled with a 9-metre-high sculpture.

This was a Heritage Lottery funded project and TFP played an important part in securing funding and thereafter working within strict draw-down criteria.

Before embarking on the redesign of the nineteenth-century Dean Orphanage, TFP were required to reshape the landscape into an appropriate setting for an art gallery. The Dean Gallery is located in close proximity to the existing Gallery of Modern Art and the resulting masterplan created an arts campus, incorporating both buildings in a unified setting of landscaped gardens and sculpture. The aim was to create an area of rambling parkland with pedestrian links between the Dean Gallery and the National Gallery of Modern Art. The site plan also encompassed the Dean Cemetery, a necropolis in Victorian style containing Edinburgh's richest collection of memorials. Serpentine paths connect the garden spaces with the adjacent Water of Leith walkway – a beautiful route following the wooded banks of the ravine where the river passes through the New Town – and other pathways leading to various parts of the city. A further attraction is a landform designed in conjunction with Charles Jencks and based on one that he and the late Maggie Keswick had in their garden in Portrack, Dumfriesshire. This layout aims to provide the visitor with a synthesis of art and nature.

Writing for Blueprint, Doris Lockhart-Saatchi's appraisal of The Dean Gallery is that: 'Farrell has stitched together contributions from architectural idiosyncrats Thomas Hamilton and John Soane; Surrealist expert Roland Penrose; collector; former golf champion and Paolozzi patron Gabrielle Keiller; and artistic visionaries William Blake and Eduardo Paolozzi into a brilliant patchwork where intention and accident have equal weight. The experience of Farrell's Dean Gallery is one of total immersion, especially upon entering the ground floor corridor where high ceilings, darkly coloured lights and a multitude of objects apparently afloat in glass vitrines suggest a mysterious journey through the unfamiliar. Farrell's integrated celebration of Blake's vision and Newtonian reason has created one of the best museum buildings in the country.”