The next gallery experience is promised ahead, through the space between these gables. This space both lights and unifies the spread of galleries around it. In the centre, a spiral stair opens out the view of the floor below, showing more facets of Geffrye activity, with its education and seminar rooms, conservation workshops and collections stores. On the ground floor of the horseshoe is a sequence of the permanent galleries, a temporary exhibition gallery and a new book shop. Careful brick detailing accentuates the uninterrupted sweep of the existing exterior wall, while inside the wall breaks down into a colonnade enclosing the central court.
Materials are sympathetic to the building's historic context, but handled in a contemporary fashion.
The Geffrye Museum extension staircase Walls are faced with handmade brick compatible with the existing museum buildings, and a traditional tiled roof sits on a timber frame. Rather than air conditioning the new wing, a low energy high insulation solution has been adopted, to provide the right environment for conserving furniture. The new galleries appear at first to extend the typology of the almshouses, yet as the curve becomes apparent, the linear form is understood to be distorted into the horseshoe. This ensures continuity of the display, and effectively returns visitors to the existing building to make their way out. It also adds a surprise twist to an otherwise linear experience.