Introducing Designing for Heritage: Contemporary Visitor Centres

With tourists expecting higher levels of service, information and retail opportunities, visitor centres have become a vital component in providing access to heritage sites, historic buildings, landscapes of natural beauty and monuments. As a consequence, numerous architecturally renowned centres have been designed and built in recent years. It is perhaps no surprise that many have been featured in architectural awards, as they not only offer a ‘jewel’ of a project to architects, being small in scale but high in profile, but the buildings must also respond sympathetically to a rich physical and cultural context.

This book examines the phenomenon of this relatively new, but increasingly popular, building type by looking at 20 award-winning buildings including centres at The Giant’s Causeway, Stonehenge, Brockholes, Rosslyn Chapel, Culloden and the Welney Wetland Centre. Each building study is beautifully illustrated with photographs and architectural drawings and includes the essential facts about the building, an experiential description
and a full spatial analysis. It is a visual sourcebook for any practitioner charged with designing a visitor centre but also accessibly written to be of interest to heritage professionals and those with a general interest in heritage, memory and place.  

Designing for Heritage is available to order from our website.