The redevelopment of the International Slavery Museum (ISM) and Maritime Museum in Liverpool, UK, achieved planning approval in Autumn 2024. On this occasion, ArchDaily's editor Mohieldin Gamal had the opportunity to engage in a conversation with Kossy Nnachetta, partner at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the office in charge of the redevelopment. She discusses her architectural journey, key considerations of her practice, and the challenges and opportunities of designing the Maritime and International Slavery Museum, a joint project that had to address several sensitive and historically important issues. Kossy draws on her human-centered and community-driven design approach, describing how this development builds upon Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios' extensive portfolio of cultural projects, adaptive reuse, and historical restorations.
ArchDaily (Mohieldin Gamal): Tell me about your architectural journey. How did you end up where you are today as a partner at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios?
Kossy Nnachetta: I joined Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios over ten years ago, working across multiple sectors; including Higher Education, Residential Mixed-use, Workspace, and Cultural Creative-reuse. Prior to that, I was at several design-led practices which helped hone my passion for creating human-scale buildings with attention to detail. For me, designing, pulling ideas together, and creating something from nothing, was always a joy. From the first day of that high school graphic design lesson, with a drawing board, parallel motion, and set squares; I was mesmerized. I loved learning how to create absolutely anything with those tools and a blank sheet of paper. Architecture is a step beyond this.
Related Article
The International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum in Liverpool, UK, Receive Planning ApprovalInstead of creating a world on paper, we get to shape the world around us. Instead of creating for myself, I get the privilege of creating from the vision of the communities I work with.
AD: What issues and principles are important to you and how do they manifest in your architecture?
KN: I care about how people feel in and around the spaces we create. I want the architecture to work with them, to enhance their experience of life's activities. This was achieved in the Thornton Building on the Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridgeshire, which is centered around the theme of biophilic design. It's about more than having plants in the space; it's about the physical and visual relationship between humans and nature. There is space for outdoor working as well as space for respite. Daylight through the timber diagrid rooflight creates an interplay of light and shadow, allowing building users to appreciate the passing of the day. The building is finished with tactile natural materials like exposed CLT, glulam, and natural cork flooring. The air source heat pump, solar panels, green roof, cycle storage, and shower facilities, all add to the sustainable operation and enhanced staff experience of the building.
Attention to detail was essential to the success of the Central Quad - Grangegorman, Technical University Dublin. It's a huge building, bringing together ten schools in a purpose-built science, innovation, and research-focused teaching building. An integrated application of BIM and off-site fabrication paved the way for its success, including a High Commendation from RIAI (Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland). But the reason the students love it so much is that it was built with them in mind every step of the way. From the informal break-out spaces within to the detailed façade work that encloses the landscaped courtyard.
AD: What were your key design responses for the International Slavery Museum & Maritime Museum?
KN: The project sensitively responds to the existing Grade I-listed buildings on the Albert Docks. They are housed in the Hartley Pavilion (formerly Warehouse Block D) and the Dr Martin Luther King Jr (MLK) Building, formerly ITV Granada Studios, and before that the Dock Traffic Office. It started with understanding the building's civic value and cherished nature in order to reimagine and revitalize them. They will be settings for storytelling, heritage, community, and hospitality. The project develops new galleries for both museums, as well as shared spaces for community uses, research, learning, and events. Visitor facilities will also be revitalized, including a shop, café, event space, and restaurant, all of which work within National Museums Liverpool's aspirations to decarbonize both existing buildings.
The Maritime Museum's welcome spaces will be reconfigured to fully engage with their surroundings and provide an enhanced visitor experience. A new contemporary Link Bridge will connect the two buildings, allowing the stories of both museums to weave seamlessly together, whilst providing a beautiful pause-point with panoramic views across the docks. Here, visitors can stop and consider that the stories gathered in the exhibitions are not far-off narratives but relate to the place they currently stand. Britain's maritime exploits and the transatlantic slave trade are all part of the story of Liverpool, part of our shared history.
Here, visitors can stop and consider that the stories gathered in the exhibitions are not far-off narratives but relate to the place they currently stand.
AD: The Entrance Pavilion is probably the most striking part of the design, what was the design consideration there?
KN: The significance of the International Slavery Museum, being dedicated to telling the wide-reaching story of the transatlantic slave trade, should not be underestimated. This project is exceptional. It is of great significance to Liverpool, the UK, and the world. It can be argued that Liverpool's historic role in the transatlantic slave trade gave these docks its wealth and status, yet nowhere in the architectural landscape is this expressed. The kidnap and enslavement of millions of people for profit, and its modern-day consequences, is an inconvenient truth, which Liverpool is being bold in addressing.
We're dealing with one of the worst atrocities in human history, and this architecture is bold in its response. It wouldn't have been appropriate to address the injustice of this vile trade with a diminutive architecture. The Entrance Pavilion, however, does not seek to dominate the MLK building. Its setting and structural rhythm relate directly to the existing building, aligning with the window layout and allowing views through its ironwork. The form has been cut back to the west, and sits under the existing parapet, allowing the form of the existing building to be read. The existing entrance and the new entrance sit side-by-side in equal prominence; neither dominating the other. Architecture speaks, and this message - expressed through the built form - is so important, especially as communities in Liverpool and the UK seek to understand how to work through the modern-day legacy of slavery.
Whilst the existing portico entrance is a grand entrance, it falls short of requirements for the thousands of expected daily visitors when the museum opens. The new Entrance Pavilion and ramp address practical issues whilst expressing the aspirations of the museum. The facade will be an expression of co-production and an artist or maker will be invited to represent the co-production conversations. In allowing the existing building to be seen through it, the open pattern will read as the missing layer of history. Not eliminating what is there, but adding to it, to tell the full story. The central balustrade within the Entrance Pavilion is also a co-produced piece, displaying a timeline created at a community workshop. The timeline charts the museum's story within the wider context of Liverpool's historic involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, as well as outlining some of the modern-day consequences.
At the core of the transatlantic slave trade, is an unjust and deliberate forgetting of the intrinsic human worth of millions of African people, for commercial gain. The Entrance Pavilion is a monument to this, but it is also a beacon of hope for a more inclusive and equitable future for all. It is Restorative Justice through space.
AD: Both the site and the subject matter of the museums carry a lot of history. How did you respond to this history sensitively?
KN: We worked closely with our Heritage Consultants (Donald Insall Associates) to understand the history of the site. We found a wonderful expression of Victorian pragmatism in the existing buildings, which were designed for adaptation as future needs arose. For example, the windows you see on the north face of the Harley Pavilion were completely blocked out when it was first built. Prioritizing the security of the goods stored within; engineer Jesse Hartley left infilled recesses that could be opened as windows when the need arose.
There's been continual change over the centuries - from when the Old Docks were dredged up from the river's tidal margins, enclosing the Lyver Pool in the 18th century - to the present day. We've seen free-standing and infill structures all over the site, with varying degrees of permanence - storing goods shipped from all over the world. Those goods, however, were often produced by enslaved hands, and we know that these docks were used to repair slave ships.
The International Slavery Museum started out 30 years ago in the basement of the Maritime Museum. An inspiring small group of activists, recognizing the deficit in the displayed narrative, created the Slavery Gallery, which was opened by American poet and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou. The gallery grew as ISM rose in prominence to achieve museum status and is now ready to occupy its own dedicated building. Both museums are joining together to transform Liverpool's waterfront and tell the full story of Britain's maritime history in tandem with its role in the transatlantic slave trade. This story has too long been side-lined. But not anymore. This isn't about ladening guilt; it's about telling the truth. As Maya Angelou said at the exhibition opening in 1994:
Guilt is about the most dangerous of emotions, it eats up the host but does nothing for the problem. What this exhibition can do is inform. That is the most important thing. Those who have eyes, let them see and those who have ears, let them hear.
I say with courage and apprehension; let's meet, let's talk, let's learn, let's boldly confront our shared history, and see what healing, hope, and good will come from it.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Women in Architecture presented by Sky-Frame.
Sky-Frame is characterized by its empathic ability to take on different perspectives and points of view. We are interested in people and their visions, whether in architecture or in a social context. We deeply care about creating living spaces and in doing so we also question the role of women in architecture. From the arts to the sciences, women shape our society. We want to shed more light on this role, increase the visibility of Women in Architecture, and empower/encourage them to realize their full potential.
Initiated by Sky-Frame, the "Women in Architecture" documentary is an impulse for inspiration, discussion, and reflection. The film's release is on November 12, 2024.
Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.
