NML looks to progress Hartley Pavilion overhaul
Having secured consent in 2024 to redevelop listed buildings for maritime and slavery-focused facilities, National Museums Liverpool now needs a fresh approval for enabling works that will underpin the Hartley Pavilion’s rebirth.
NML’s over-arching project is the redevelopment of the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum at the Royal Albert Dock.
The former is to be housed in an overhauled Dr Martin Luther King Building, the latter in the Hartley Pavilion, with a new link building in between.
Conservation architecture specialist Donald Insall Associates and The Planning Lab are the critical advisors to NML on this element of the “Two Museums, One Vision. Transforming the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum” project.
Planning permission and listed building consents were given in October 2024 for the £58m scheme at the Royal Albert Dock.
Works are to include a new entrance pavilion, glazed roof lantern and pedestrian link bridge between the buildings, new and upgraded entrance vestibules, replacement glazing, new rooflights, and reconfigured rooftop plant areas with new external plant.
Also included are internal changes to both buildings which will underpin the enhancement of exhibition spaces and visitor facilities through new entrances, circulation routes, partitions, and associated works.
To enable the approved works, NML said interim enabling works at the Hartley Pavilion are required that were not captured in the 2024 consent, or in earlier plans.
These have been discussed in a site visit with planning officers in January, with the outcome being that separate listed building consents for works are required at each building.
The Planning Lab’s cover letter for the Hartley Pavilion works sets out the parameters for a package of works to include:
- Removal of non-loadbearing partitions and glazed screens
- Removal of internal joinery including doors, linings, architraves and skirtings, along with modern floor finishes and suspended ceilings
- Removal of modern concrete stair between ground floor lobby and basement and reinstatement of masonry vaulted soffit and floor structure to match adjacent bays
- Removal of all set works (except where identified for retention)
- Removal of existing sanitaryware and removal of all M&E services and equipment in preparation for future phases of refurbishment and re-servicing works
- Limited investigative works
FCB Studios is the main architect for the museums scheme, building on work started by the previous studio attached to the project, Adjaye Associates.
Planning documents relating to the fresh LBC application can be found on Liverpool City Council’s planning portal, with the reference 26L/0677.
Philip Hardwick’s beautifully-balanced Dock Traffic Office (now re-named) is in the process of being desecrated by NML with the addition of a meritless carbuncle to its northern facade. It is an act of conceited vandalism by people who proclaim to celebrate Liverpool’s heritage whilst doing the exact opposite. For shame!
By More Anonymous than the Others
They’ve been dragging this out for years now, and though the buildings are surrounded in scaffolding and white sheeting we still need permissions to progress the works.
These are important cultural venues and though the Tate Gallery is not part of their brief that too has been unavailable to the public for too long.
But isn’t this just the norm now for many projects in Liverpool eg the Birkenhead ferry terminal works are overdue, the Baltic Rail station works have now been delayed, Paddington Village stalled, Littlewoods stalled, Chinatown impasse, need I go on.
By Anonymous
If I’m reading this correctly, it’s a bit awkward that the removal of 80s internal additions wasn’t included in the original listed buildings consent. How did Adjaye miss this?
By Anonymous
Did they not think of all this before closing down for an extended period at the same time as the Tate, leaving the Albert Dock without its two major non-moptop visitor attractions at the same time? It’s always suspicious when consent is given for major alterations to a historic building as part of a comprehensive application where changes and potential harm can be considered in context, and then stuff like this appears later. Particularly in the context of NML’s already consented and extraordinarily insensitive changes to the Grade 1-listed MLK Building and the performative stuff in the old dock, because just putting a ship in it isn’t the correct sort of clever and won’t win them any awards.
By Jessie Partly