Listing bid launched to protect David Chipperfield's first major building in UK

Conservation group Twentieth Century Society has submitted a listing application for the River and Rowing Museum in Oxfordshire, aiming to protect the future of David Chipperfield's first significant project.

Built in 1997 in Henley, the River and Rowing Museum is considered to be Chipperfield's first major UK project and the precursor to a portfolio of significant cultural buildings. The museum closed last year, leaving its future uncertain.

Chipperfield released a letter of support for the listing application, crediting the River and Rowing Museum as pivotal in shaping design themes that became prominent in his later work.

His eponymous studio has designed a number of notable buildings – including the Neues Museum in Berlin, The Hepworth Wakefield gallery in Yorkshire and Museo Jumex in Mexico City – and Chipperfield won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2023.

"Completed in 1997, this project was my practice's first major UK commission and our first significant cultural building – a sector in which we have since developed an international reputation," said Chipperfield in the letter.

"Many principles explored here, such as the use of natural light and sensitivity to context, remain central to our work," he continued.

"We were saddened to hear of the museum's closure but we are convinced that the flexibility of the original design will allow the building to serve a new purpose in a way that respects and preserves its architectural character."

Informed by local river boathouses and traditional wooden barns, the museum is made up of two pitched volumes connected by a glass and concrete footbridge, which leads to an education centre.

The building is clad in untreated green English oak and raised atop concrete pillars to help it withstand flooding.

The River and Rowing Museum closed in September last year due to financial issues, according to the museum's foundation trust. The building went on sale in November for £3 million, and bids were received in January.

It is hoped that gaining listed status will ensure the building is sensitively adapted and reused in the future.

"David Chipperfield's pioneering and influential museum building is a calm, elegant and sophisticated project; fusing a Japanese-esque design language with traditional English rural forms, it is perfectly at home in its beautiful setting on the banks of the Thames," said Twentieth Century Society director Catherine Croft.

"The practice's first significant UK and cultural project, it remains totally intact and eminently reusable," she continued.

"The recent closure of the museum will inevitably lead to some changes, so this is the ideal time for it to be assessed for national listing to ensure that these are sympathetic and carefully managed."

In August last year, Chipperfield's former studio and first project built in the UK was granted Grade II-listed status. Named 1 Cobham Mews, the London office building was built in 1989.

Recent projects by David Chipperfield Architects include an ice hockey arena designed for the 2026 Winter Olympics and its latest design for the Nobel Center in Stockholm, which has been scaled since the studio's first proposal was unveiled in 2014.

The photography is by Richard Bryant unless stated.

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