Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts, Gateshead

Architect: Ellis Williams Architects
Contractor: HBG
Type of works: installation of naturally anodised, J57S aluminium hook-pin rainscreen cladding system.

Standing alongside the already famous blinking eye Millennium bridge, joining Newcastle with Gateshead, the Baltic Arts Centre houses the city’s contemporary arts museum. This 50m high, former flour mill has two specially adapted, high-level viewing galleries and a restaurant offering panoramic views of the newly regenerated quayside.

Sotech manufactured 5,000m² of anodised-aluminium cladding for this quayside regeneration centrepiece. The visitor centre is directly overlooked by the building's three outward facing glass elevators. To enhance the aesthetic appearance of the visitor centre, its curved standing seam roof is cloaked with a secretly fixed, anodised aluminium rainscreen. At total of 2,500m² of secret fix hook-on rainscreen cladding has been installed to the visitor centre walls and roof, gallery rooftop restaurant as well as to ancillary buildings. In addition to the external rainscreen cladding, a further 2,500m² of anodised aluminium were provided to the internal elevator shafts.