The Building
A design competition for the museum building in 1971 was delayed by a postal strike, allowing time for the eventual winning architect Barry Gasson to complete his entry, designed in collaboration with Brit Andresen.
The building is L-shaped in plan and is specifically tailored to house and display the diverse collection, with larger pieces such as Romanesque doorways built into the structure, at the same time giving views out into the park over formal grassed areas to the south, and into adjacent woodland to the north.
The entrance, through a 16th century stone archway built into a modern red sandstone gable, leads to a shop and other facilities, then on to a central courtyard under a glazed roof, adjacent to the reconstructions of three rooms from the Burrell's home, Hutton Castle near Berwick-on-Tweed: the wood panelled drawing room, hall, and dining room complete with their furnishings. Galleries on two levels house various smaller artefacts, over a basement storage level, and at the lower level a restaurant gives views over the lawn to the south.
The museum was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1983, and was named as Scotland's second greatest post-war building (after Gillespie, Kidd & Coia's St. Peter's Seminary) in a poll of architects by Prospect magazine in 2005.
Read more about this topic: Burrell Collection
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