Green Room renovates art gallery

Green Room Retail Design has completed work on a cultural retail and cafe space with a real difference as part of a £1.5 million refurbishment of Leeds City Art Gallery.

The refurbishment of Leeds City Art Gallery has been jointly funded in the by Leeds City Council and Yorkshire Forward.

The main aim was to restore and make use of disused spaces; one of the most striking examples of this was the painstaking restoration and unveiling of the Victorian Tiled Hall.

This awe-inspiring and beautiful room, which had been closed off and hidden behind library shelves for many years, forms a natural link between the Art Gallery and the adjacent Leeds Central Library.

It is more than half a century since the public have seen the hall, where intricate, colourful Victorian tile work, marble columns and the oak, ebony and walnut parquet floor have been lovingly restored.

Originally opened in 1844, the refit required Green Room Retail to look carefully at traditionally derived materials and processes to produce a scheme that was completely sympathetic to such an unusual historic and artistic setting.

Bearing in mind the life span of the building, GRR decided to utilise time-honoured materials.

Units were built to last out of real oak faced veneers on beech ply sections with solid granite work surfaces and opal glass shelf covers.

The complete shelving system is made from distressed steel with a clear lacquer and a subtle system of hidden slots giving flexibility and strength.

Overall this is a thoughtful scheme that works in harmony with this striking environment and adds considerable weight to Green Room Retail's current heritage portfolio.

The retail and cafe element of the gallery will add significantly to visitor dwell times and should help to establish the gallery as a key location for business lunches or relaxed early evening meetings.

Richard Ash, MD of Green Room Retail, said: "This has been a fantastic project for us to be involved with - it has been an honour to be chosen by the gallery and Leeds City Council to undertake this work.

"It has also been really exciting for us to apply our modern design principles within such an iconic setting".

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