Founded at the end of the 19th century. The museum is located in the Sydney Hotel, the entrance pavilion of the 18th century "pleasure garden" of the same name, which combined a hotel, a casino and a covered terrace for the orchestra overlooking the park. For the needs of the museum, which displays a collection of paintings (including Gainsborough) and decorative art by William Holburn, the building was significantly rebuilt in the early 20th century.
Despite the distortions of both the building itself and its park (in the 19th century, a canal and a railway were laid through it), the complex has the status of a category 1 monument, in addition, the whole of Bath is a World Heritage Site: like the Sydney Hotel, the city is almost entirely built in the mainstream of classicism from the local golden limestone. Therefore, the project of the new building was repeatedly revised, local officials and active townspeople demanded to include a stone in the solution of the facade, or, at least, to make the originally planned ceramic profiles yellow. But Eric Parry drew the attention of critics to the fact that the local limestone is not a monotonous honey color, but with dark inclusions, which are similar to the cold green color of its ceramics.
Glazed plates cover the facades of the temporary exhibition hall on the upper, third floor of the building, the same profiles decorate the glass walls of the second floor, and the lower tier is left completely transparent. The gleaming green surface of the ceramics reflects and echoes the tones of the surrounding vegetation: the rectangular block of the new building is attached from the garden facade of the Sydney Hotel and is not visible from the city side. Inside, in addition to exhibition spaces, there is a cafe and an educational center. Perhaps the new building will serve as a tuning fork for the revival of the surrounding park, which could have become a "pleasure garden" of the 21st century.
N. F.
