Caruso St John Architects

1999
Location: St Albans, UK
Project Status: Competition

This competition design for a new enclosure over the Verulamium Hypocaust proposes a structure of uncertain age. It is a building that can meaningfully engage with its Roman contents, with the Medieval Abbey across the park and with the future histories of St Albans. From a distance the building appears as a stone in the landscape, volumetrically solid and sharp. As one approaches, the flint wall construction becomes apparent. The walls, although made in a living local technology, have a strong resemblance to the varied profile and uncertain composition of ruins.

A generous vestibule with a brick floor acts as a thick threshold between everyday St Albans and a place of reverie and contemplation. The walls and ceiling of this inner chamber are lined in translucent glass spaced at a varying distance from the solid masonry walls. The window clusters project their outline onto this translucent screen in ethereal and ghostly patterns that move and change with the sun outside. The terrace outside the door overlooks the park. Around the little museum, the sloping green field is planted with large areas of purple and white crocus.