Project summary

Nottingham Contemporary, designed by architects Caruso St John, is one of the largest venues for temporary exhibitions of contemporary art in the UK, with an overall size of 3,000 square metres.

The building opened on 14th November 2009 with a major exhibition of over 60 works by David Hockney from national and international museum collections. The exhibition re-examines Hockney's work 1960-1968, his early years in London and Los Angeles, in the context of art today. It is the first time the early works - finishing with the iconic Californian painting A Bigger Splash - have been brought together since the Whitechapel retrospective of 1970, nearly 40 years ago.

The Hockney exhibition occupies two of the building's four galleries which offer a huge combined space of 750 square metres. In addition, there are superb education and study areas, a café-bar and shop and a large performance space designed to accommodate performance art, dance, theatre and music. The space may also be used for exhibitions and corporate functions.

Charcoalblue has worked with Caruso St John to try to bring the feeling of a "found space" to the performance space, as well as ensuring that the technical infrastructure can provide for both art exhibitions, events and performance.