The Warburg Institute
The Warburg Institute
We worked as heritage advisors with Haworth Tompkins on the £14.5m refurbishment of The Warburg Institute, one of the world’s leading centres for studying the interaction of ideas, images and society.
The project focused on the rear of the site, which is a 1955–58 building designed by the firm of Charles Holden. Although not listed, the Institute lies within the Bloomsbury Conservation Area (within which it is identified as a positive contributor) as well as within the vicinity of a number of statutorily listed buildings. By understanding the historical development of this part of Bloomsbury – a mix of early nineteenth-century terraces and twentieth-century university buildings – we were able to assess the impact of the proposals on the setting of the adjacent housing, which was judged to be neutral.
The project completed in 2024: along with essential upgrades to heating, lighting and energy performance, the project has given the institute a public, museum-grade gallery for the first time, as well as a new 140-seat auditorium, deftly inserted into the U-shaped courtyard, to host public lectures, conferences, concerts and films as well as storage and study spaces for archives and special collections - altogether totalling a 30% increase in student and research space.
Client: University College London
Architects: Haworth Tompkins
Photos: Courtesy of the architects