David Chipperfield and The Hepworth Wakefield

The Hepworth Wakefield opened in 2011 to house Wakefield’s art collection and provide a legacy for Barbara Hepworth in the town in which she was born.

In 2003 Wakefield Council launched an international RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) competition to find an architect to design the new art gallery for Wakefield. The competition led to the selection of David Chipperfield Architects.

David Chipperfield Architects was established in 1985 and the practice currently has over 200 staff at its offices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai. In 2011 David Chipperfield received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in recognition of a lifetime’s work.

Early sketches show Chipperfield's initial designs for the building. He described the 'sculptural form of the museum' as 'paying homage to Barbara Hepworth'.

Parallels can be drawn between the interlocking volumes of Chipperfield's designs and the intersecting forms of Hepworth's sculptures, such as Six Forms on a Circle (1967).

Design development started in 2004 and construction began three years later after capital funding had been secured. 

The £35 million development of The Hepworth Wakefield opened in 2011 to international acclaim, reaching its initial annual target of 150,000 visitors in the first five weeks.

Each of the ten gallery spaces is slightly different in shape and size with no two surfaces lying parallel to another. 

Oblique views from gallery to gallery invite the visitor to follow their own path through the space. 

When designing The Hepworth Wakefield, Chipperfield responded imaginatively to the gallery’s waterfront setting and industrial heritage of the site. 

The gallery is able to source the majority of its heating and cooling from the river’s flow.

The design of the galleries allows for the introduction of daylight through skylights and imposing floor-to-ceiling windows, providing ideal conditions for the display of sculpture. Hepworth believed that 'sculpture grows in the open light'.

The windows also offer visitors wonderful views of the River Calder, important local landmarks such as the medieval Chantry Chapel and Wakefield Cathedral, and the Emley Moor Transmitting Station tower, the tallest freestanding structure in the United Kingdom.

The building’s façades have been constructed of pigmented concrete which was created in-situ. Chipperfield stated that 'the decision to construct the building in concrete began with a desire to substantiate the sculptural qualities of the building form'.