The Fruitmarket Gallery brings to Scotland some of the best contemporary art in the world. As a not-for-profit gallery in the heart of Edinburgh with free admission, it attracts 160,000 people each year, and has outgrown its existing 1930s building (adapted to form its home in the 1980s). Space for the wide range of educational outreach programmes was particularly limited. The opportunity to expand sideways into the adjacent empty former nightclub building, to create new exhibition space, and free up office space to improve the education offering, formed the core of this project.
The AHF offered two project development grants, primarily towards specialist engineering and studies of the unusual structural girders supporting the buildings over a live railway line. A key question was, could the existing Victorian substructure support the proposed adaptations and alterations? With the results of the surveys positive, the rest of the project could proceed. A Heritage Impact Fund loan offer of £500,000 was made in 2019, although a highly successful fundraising programme meant that this was never needed to be used.
The new, dark, industrial spaces in the former nightclub, retaining many original historic features, form a dramatic contrast to the refurbished existing white, clean gallery space in the original gallery building. The completed £4.3 million project opened to the public in July 2021, with the designs by Reiach and Hall almost doubling the available floorspace for exhibitions and education, and the popular café and bookshop also growing in size.
https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk
Image Credits
Ruth Clark
AHF Funding
Project Development Grant - £6,500 (2015)
Project Development Grant - £6,500 (2018)
