BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art

The notion of BALTIC began in 1991 when Northern Arts (now Arts Council England) announced its ambition to achieve ‘major new capital facilities for the Contemporary Visual Arts in Central Tyneside. Just a year later, the disused Baltic Flour Mills on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead were selected as the site for this new development. In 1994, architect Dominic Williams, of Ellis Williams Architects, was announced as the winner of the competition organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects and Gateshead Council for the conversion of the Mills into a contemporary art gallery. The result is a major international centre for contemporary art, the biggest gallery of its kind, with 3,000 square metres of arts space presenting a dynamic and diverse programme of contemporary visual art. Joining Scala’s Art Spaces series and published in association with BALTIC, this book traces the architectural development of BALTIC from Flour Mill to Art Factory and its function as an internationally renowned contemporary art space.