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light

Developing the brief, transition from the cottages to the extension


David Owers
Transcript
[The brief for the extension] It was relatively minimal and it was to do with maximizing the use of the site within certain budgetary constraints with a clear need for wall hang space effectively, for the display of sculpture and the incorporation of furniture and the artifacts which were very much part of the ambiance of the house. A key decision, really, taken early on was that the existing arrangement whereby you rang the doorbell, you pulled the rope and entered the house up two steps almost into the sitting room of the converted cottages... A key decision really was that that should remain the way the visit started so the intention established fairly early on was that the house itself should be seen. There are three levels to the house, move through that, then move into the new building via that middle level of the house because there was a bridge across the passageway which is the public approach to the front door and, at that point, it would become then a question of transition. You're moving from relatively small spaces and this is transition where the natural light levels would be changing, the spaces would be changing but that transition should be as gentle as possible.

Directing the fall of natural light in the extension


David Owers
Transcript
In order to get the roof lighting evenly illuminating the wall, it needed to be inset a certain amount and it needed to be protected from direct source of light so there needed to be baffles introduced to shelter the upward view against glare and to also direct the light towards. The effect of this, by having two at the lower level, the effect is the light can illuminate the walls on either side and at the upper level it can also illuminate walls on each side and between the two there is the double height space which prevents what I've called the 'goldfish bowl effect' of a very dark ceiling with highly illuminated side walls which is often the situation you see even in some classically derived galleries, certainly some of the nineteenth century, can have dark, slightly oppressive ceilings and the attempt was to open up the centre so that there is an even illumination base.

Successful combination of the old architecture with the new


Sebastiano Barassi
Transcript
The design of the extension is very much in line with taste of the time. It's much more modern than the architecture of the cottages. It's a very, very skillful juxtaposition of old and new. Certainly, a lot of architects, even today, come and visit Kettle's Yard. The way it works, is really as you walk into the extension, you find yourself in a space that's quite similar visually to what you have just left. You have literally just walked through a room and a bridge which have large windows, that's what you get here. The new element is the skylights that open up the space upwards and introduce light coming from above. As you move into the extension, it gets wider and then, further down, deeper as well so it's a progressive opening up of the architecture and it's a very successful way of doing it, it's really quite striking architecture. So you'll find yourself from quite narrow 19th century cottage rooms into a much bigger, much more airy and spacious room without really realising that that's happened and all of a sudden you're in an entirely different atmosphere. It's really quite a striking feature of the house, this addition.

Paolo, 8, describing the plants in the window


Children
Transcript
Hello I'm Paolo. We're somewhere upstairs by the window and there is a lot of stuff that's green, but not vegetables. OK what things can you see? Leaves, one light and some pots and a watering can. OK and why did you choose this part of the house, what do you like about it? Because I like green because it’s my favourite colour and I like leaves and stuff to do with water and it seems peaceful and makes me be relaxed and that's why I like it.

Introduction to the house in 1973


Jim Ede
Transcript
Kettle's Yard is a house and it is situated in Cambridge and is a part of the university there. It might be called a museum for there are a great many pictures there and much sculpture. But there are also a lot of pebbles and it is astonishing how often a pebble can look like something quite different - a duck, a torso of a man or a woman, sometimes both. I'm constantly amazed by the beauty of form and space, the glitter of light on surfaces. Glass and china play their part, even cracked teacups into which light falls, like sunshine into pools, and all this makes a home to live in, a place for people to visit and feel at home. We and our friends have lived here for 17 years and it is hard to convey the domestic side of Kettle's Yard. In 1957 it was four little deserted slum-houses with an alleyway running between them. They were scooped out and turned into one house and the alleyway was bridged and so gradually as the cottages became a place, we began to invite people in. They came cautiously, one at a time, perhaps two, but as the years swept by, more people came until we reached ten thousand visits in the year.

Therapeutic quality of Kettle's Yard, links with Addenbrooke's Hospital


Maggie Fowler
Transcript
Realising that light, and how you position things, and having time and quiet to look at something can be actually very therapeutic. I think that's what we found because, although nursing in midwifery you think it's all joyous but actually there can be terrible tragedy in midwifery and I think we just enjoyed looking at stuff and it lifting your spirit out of perhaps something that was quite troublesome at the time so I think that's what we enjoyed. And since then I've met other people and we are actually now involved with just that actually, it seems really weird that all these years later. So, then I had somebody from the National Gallery talking about art and taking it to the bedside and I just suddenly began to put these things together, remembering how I used to feel coming here, made you think, yes that can happen. You can look at something and by looking you suddenly see something and seeing is a very opening idea and I think I did learn it here, you know, all those years ago. But now we're seriously putting it into practice with Kettle's Yard, taking art to the bedside of patients that are very unwell on the oncology ward at Addenbrooke's and doing really what I did here, all those years ago, is showing people something and being able to say, well, what do you think? what do you see? what do you think? Art's about communication, that's all it is ever about I think so you see what you want, what does it matter?

Challenges for conserving the collection today


Sebastiano Barassi
Transcript
It is difficult to retain that sense of this being a house, especially as time goes by. It's quite complicated to make it look as if it's a lived-in space because it's looking older and older, it's not just because the furnishings aging but it's in general the taste that's looking old. It's more and more like a bit of a time capsule in a sense. Things like the rugs and the actual building, the floors and walls and, you know, wear and tear in general, wherever visitors get and that's where we have a problem, and the artwork of course. One of the main problems is the fact that Jim put a lot of importance on the presence of daylight and how it interacts with things in the house and that obviously means that we have to allow a lot more sunlight into the house than it would be normally acceptable in a museum environment. It can be controlled and the damage minimised but it's still not ideal so that is really one of the big conservation challenges.