Stonyhurst Christian Heritage Centre

Competition

Architects - Reiach and Hall Architects

Stonyhurst Christian Heritage Centre

Stonyhurst College is made up of an intricate pattern of rooms, long galleries and stone halls disposed around austere courtyards. Palace fronts face designed gardens and long avenues. Upland Lancashire rises beyond the ancient trees.

The Museum

Our proposals simply reinstated the Historic Museum Room as an architectural space of some quality and allowed the Sodality Chapel and the Libraries to re-connect, allowing the whole sequence of rooms to flow into each other again as they should have. As the reinstated Historic Museum, it was able to contain and conserve a measure of the museum collection.

The proposals adopted a clean contemporary architectural language that recalled the original museum design. A plain white architectural space took full advantage of the wonderful north-facing windows. Into this place of simple brightness, glass vitrines added reflection and delicacy, ready to contain the rich color, material, texture, and history of the collection.

The Old Mill and Heritage Centre

Here we proposed that the existing beautiful stone walls be conserved and supported, creating a stone reliquary or empty vessel for the Stonyhurst College Collections.

A new secure, environmentally sound multi-storey building could then sit within the old stone building, detached from the old walls - this new building was layered vertically, responding to the different access and environmental needs of the individual parts of the collection. Each Layer designed to both protect and reveal the collection, rising up to daylight spaces at the top.

A route slowly climbed up between the old stone walls and the new museum. The walls of the new museum could then contain vitrines allowing the route itself to be part of the museum. Recesses and windows within the old walls could also contain artifacts. There were views out to the landscape and the college as the visitor ascended to the museum and library.

The remainder of the existing mill buildings were conserved and refurbished in one element as the conservation workshops and curator accommodation with direct access to the archive and additionally as kitchen and stores servicing the new visitor accommodation.

A new extension was created to the southwest of the existing buildings containing reception, café, shop, and lecture space and a new long-gallery was created - connected the visitor reception spaces to the museum which was set within the old mill building. The long gallery was an opportunity to introduce the collection to the visitor prior to entering the old mill itself.

Finally, A retreat was set within the woods to the south of the museum complex. Again, the plan was based around a simple courtyard with individual rooms looking out into the landscape.