An inside-out display cabinet: Westminster Abbey's Weston Tower

Being the only part of the new construction visible from the outside of the Abbey, no matter how well it blended in, the Weston Tower presented a particular type of challenge to the project team. Designing it was an iterative process between Ptolemy Dean Architects and structural engineers at Price & Myers.

At the beginning of the project, the only aspect of the design that had been decided was its plan: the eight pointed star formed by two rotated squares, this shape echoing one of the gallery’s exhibits – the Westminster Retable, England’s oldest altarpiece, a thirteenth century masterpiece of painting on oak panels. “There was only one place on the outside of the Abbey the tower could go – that angle between the Chapter House and the Henry VII Chapel – so we knew from the beginning we wouldn’t have much space,” said Sam Price, co-founder of Price & Myers.

Despite this, there were originally ideas to build the tower out of stone. “But that just wasn’t going to happen,” said Price and Myers associate Fiona Cobb. “It quickly became evident that we would have to make the footprint of the tower as small as possible, and that led us back to a slim concrete lift shaft with steelwork supporting the outer edges of the floors and stair.” This led to the concept of using the glass tower almost as a museum display case in reverse: instead of visitors looking at an exhibit from outside the case, the Abbey itself is the exhibit and visitors view it from inside the case.