Having With a double skin of glass and plastic clip-on panels adaptable to the building’s growth, the Sainsbury’s Centre was Norman Foster’s first museum. Celebrating 40 years since its opening in 1978, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts presented ‘Superstructures: The New Architecture 1960-90’, curated by Jane Pavitt and Abraham Thomas, a major exhibition of post-World War Two Architecture marked by new technologies, lightweight structures, pioneering building techniques and innovative engineering solutions. The Norman Foster Foundation collaborated on this exhibition lending several drawings from the Norman Foster Foundation Archive.

 · Fred Olsen Amenity Building, Millwall Docks, London, United Kingdom, 1968-1970

 Drawings 

· Fred Olsen Passenger Terminal, London, England, 1969-1970

  Drawings   

· Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, United Kingdom, 1974-1978

  Drawings   Models 

Cutaway section Fred Olsen Amenity Building

Floor plan configuration, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

View from mezzanine, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art 

Cutaway Section, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art

Letter from Norman Foster to Buckminster Fuller

The Sainsbury’s Centre was conceived to house the donation of Robert and Lisa Sainsbury’s art collection to the University of East Anglia. Fascinated by the work done for Fred Olsen Amenity building, and the use of lightweight steel and glass structure used, the Sainsburys decided took on board Foster Associates to do so. Commissioned in 1974 and opened in 1978, it was the practice’s first museum, and marked a milestone in Foster’s architecture.

The Sainsbury's collection to be hosted was varied in shape and format, in Foster’s words ‘Robert and Lisa’s collection, though, was very varied. I remember first going to see them in Smith Square [Westminster] and being delighted by finding a Henry Moore [Mother and Child] at the bottom of the stair, a Giacometti sculpture [Standing Woman] in the living room, a Francis Bacon portrait of Lady Sainsbury over the fireplace, African masks in Sir Robert’s study and bedroom and any number of tiny carvings. They were keen to stress that all these works could be displayed in a space of uniform height. We came round to the idea of a building that was, in effect, a single volume.’ Therefore, it was capital to achieve one-span building that would host every item to come. Using an aerospatial analogy, it would work like a hangar.

Even if there was never a written brief for Sainsbury’s Centre, it was not meant to be only a Public Museum. Sited in the University of East Anglia, it had to also give members of the University and visitors a getaway spot from their daily life, a place to enjoy the collection but also be able to read, or gather. The program, therefore, also included restaurant and accommodation for the University. This was solved in a single building that works as a progression of structural elements, that is edged with the lake framing the natural environment of the site.

The 70s were also a time of intense collaboration with Buckminster Fuller, who had a visionary approach to prefabrication and lightweight engineering. These two concepts were highly present during the Sainsbury’s conception. Anthony Hunt, who was responsible of the engineering of the building was also a confessed supporter of prefabrication and its efficiency. Hunt had previously collaborated with Foster Associates in projects such as the IBM Pilot Office and, more importantly, in the Fred Olsen Amenity Building.

The solution proposed for the Sainsbury was to create a double skinned building, where the structure would not only host the services deemed for the correct functioning of the building and the conservation of the artworks but it would allow natural light to invade the building. This double skin was the key to the building’s spatial solution: a sequence of 2.4 meter trusses, contained and concealed when needed toilets, kitchens, storage rooms together with all the systems – ducts, pipes, heating and ventilation, while it allowed in-house maintenance without any public disturbance. This ultimately generated a 150 meters building with a span of 34 meters, without any internal support, making the Sainsbury’s Centre adaptable and ready to host to new art media to come.

This ‘superstructure’ was then cladded with clip-on superplastic aluminum panels. Even if it had widely used in other industries, the Sainsbury’s was one of the first examples of its use in architecture. What was most revolutionary about it, was the decision to use the same cladding system for the walls and the roofing, which had never been tried before. The aluminum cladding was combined with glazed panels concealed behind perforated louvres that bring natural daylight to the interior of the building.

To emphasize even more Fuller’s influence in the Sainsbury’s and further projects, it was during an aerial site visit to the Sainsbury that Fuller posed the celebrated question ‘How much does your building weigh, Mr Foster?’. Foster later replied with the letter seen on the left. The final amount was the sum of 5,618.6 tons. However what is important to stress about this figure, is that only one fifth of it corresponds to the building’s ‘superstructure’, which includes its steel trusses structure, substructure, cladding, glazing, interior fittings and services equipment. The remaining four-fifths (4,507 tons) was the weight of the building’s concrete substructure. It is known that the projects that have followed the Sainsbury’s Centre, have been, and still are, a careful and thorough structural exercise of a precise geometry. It is this premise of structural coherence that has been present through all Foster’s career.