C O N T E X T 8 4 : M A Y 2 0 0 4 17 that they were ‘respectably dressed’. Designs by Basevi (who died in a fall from the west tower of Ely Cathedral) and by his replacement (Charles Robert Cockerell, 1788–1863) gave to the institution its greatest architectural images: the steps, portico of eight columns, pediment and huge flanking. All of this was derived from the recently excavated Capitolium at Brescia, the Roman city of Brixia in Lombardy. The entrance is practically a hill of stone. The climb to the entry door means first passing the iron gates Graham Tite is senior conservation officer, London Borough of Greenwich. Further reading DavidWatkin, The Triumph of the Classical: Cambridge architecture 1804–1834, Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition catalogue, 1977 Treasures from the Fitzwilliam (Cambridge, 1989) contains Michael Jaffe’s introduction to this exhibition catalogue, with a summary of the history of the museum buildings and collections. Duncan Robinson, et al, The Fitzwilliam Museum 1848–1998: 150 years of collecting (1998) pictures, purchased from the collection of Charles Butler in 1893. A second Italian gallery and four other exhibition spaces were added in 1931, supported by a Courtauld benefaction. Forming a T-shaped extension at the end of the MarlayWing and designed once more by Smith and Brewer, the structures are on a scale commensurate with the Founder’s Building. The main picture gallery holds large Italian renaissance and baroque works. It is this extension that forms the background to the new work opened in 2004. David Roberts designed two further extensions in 1966 and 1975 to complete the Fitzwilliam’s square-shaped southern block. In the centre of this block was a rectangular empty space: a courtyard with no special use and not visible from any of the public areas. This is the site of the museum’s latest extension. The architects are John Miller + Partners. The firm has worked on theWhitechapel Art Gallery (1985 and 1997), Serpentine Gallery (1998), Millbank extension to the Tate Britain gallery (opened 2001), and the forthcoming Playfair scheme for the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. As it is hemmed in on three sides by existing buildings, and at the rear by the open space of water meadows that are equally protected from development, there was no scope for lateral extension. Going upwards was also out of the question. The response has been what has been called an ‘intension’. The new galleries and other facilities are out of sight to passers-by inTrumpington Street and they reach no higher than the 20th century host building. This, in turn, remains subordinate to the lofty central attic of the 19th century Founder’s Building. It is a strongly conservationist solution, involving no demolition and no need for the new structure to imitate or harmonise with the classical external masonry of the older buildings. The Fitzwilliam’s infill structure consists of a basement, three main levels and a loft that add around 3,000 square metres of floor space. In addition to creating a great deal of behind-the-scenes working space for curators and the education department, visitors will appreciate the new ground floor circulation space with its enlarged shop and coffee house, a new lecture room and, above all, a new first-floor gallery to accommodate temporary exhibitions. and stone outer wall of piers and balusters. A more imposing presentation or prelude to what lies inside could not be devised. Virtually at the entrance to Cambridge on the London side, the museum seems to be an outpost. Its bulk can be glimpsed across the nearby water meadows as if it were a fortress. The stone façade is utterly different from the medieval andTudor gateways of most of the colleges. The classical style receives its most emphatic assertion in the whole of the city in this façade. David Watkin has said that the architectural display put on here helps ‘make the building, like its contents, a liberal education in itself’. Once inside, the vestibule and stairs reveal a further astonishing architectural display. Its creation involved a further series of works by CR Cockerell and Edward Middleton Barry, carried out before 1871. Looking up to a glazed cupola, we see mosaic, marble, polished granite and plasterwork surfaces. Richly polychrome, this interior announces an opulent mid-Victorian taste. From the completion of the Founder’s Building, 50 years would pass before the museum could find the funds to add the structures it needed to house the burgeoning collections. The proximity of the ancient walls of Peterhouse to the north precluded any extension in that direction. Designs were prepared in 1912 by the Arts and Crafts architectural firm, A Dunbar Smith and Cecil C Brewer, for a wing on two floors, leading out from the south wall of the Founder’s Building, but to a lower height. The benefactor was Charles Brinsley Marlay, only the second in date and second in fame after the museum’s noble founder. The clerestory-lit Upper Marlay Gallery is also known as the First Italian Gallery from its contents of 14th and 15th century The Main Entrance Hall of The Fitzwilliam Museum Detail of the Main Entrance Hall of The Fitzwilliam Museum
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