Ruthin Craft Centre

I was expecting great things of Ruthin Craft Centre.

Following the completion of its renovation in 2008, the building itself had garnered a lot of media attention and was nominated for the RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture. Therefore, I was looking forward to seeing the building that looked so interesting in the press photographs as well as finding out what one of the few galleries dedicated specifically and solely to the applied arts had to offer.

On both counts I was sorely disappointed.

Although the space created by the shape of the building, a large empty rectangle surrounded on three sides by the gallery, could have been used very effectively and could have increased the space available – it was not used to its full potential and neither was the building itself.

The three galleries flowed from one to the other, giving a feeling of continuity and completeness – but all three were relatively small. And in actual fact, gallery two and three were actually very small. Any substantial exhibition would require the use of all three galleries.

This meant that all three exhibitions felt like shoddy snapshots of the artists’ work, rather than well-prepared, well-presented displays. Furthermore, even though the spaces were designed specifically to exhibit the applied arts, it was no different to an “ordinary” art gallery. There were no glass cases to ensure that the visitor could see the garments or pieces of ceramic displayed rather than merely the front.

The shop had a large and varied selection of unusual books and magazines on the applied arts, which would be useful for students, practitioners and anyone else with a particular interest in this field of the arts. However the products (jewellery, ceramics, textiles) on sale in the shop were aimed at the higher end of the market as were the offerings (and prices) in the cafe. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, but any shop/ cafe must take its location into account when setting its prices, and I think that the Ruthin Craft Centre might have failed to do so.

There were a number of artist’s studios on site, which gave the visitor the opportunity to see a variety of different crafts. However, it was a pity that the vast majority of the site was used for these studios to the detriment of the space available for the galleries.

Overall, having a centre for the applied arts in North Wales is undoubtedly a good thing, however if the space provided by Ruthin Craft Centre and been used to its full potential, the visitor’s experience would be greatly improved.