The Galeri opened in 2005 and was designed by Richard Murphy Architects of Edinburgh. It is conceived to bring together creative enterprise businesses and performance activities. In plan there are three parallel strips, with the long sides to the south-east and north-west. Outer strips accommodate offices with a ground-level restaurant and second-floor music school, while the taller, wider centre has the auditorium at one end and two levels of studio at the other, divided by a full-height foyer lit from a clerestory, with a bar below a minstrels? gallery.

Its construction is based on a painted steel frame that is expressed inside and out with horizontal boarding and dark-painted windows that are typical of Murphy. It is immaculately detailed and entirely at ease in the dockland setting. Inside, it is wood and steel again, and shiny polished plaster coloured dark red, purple and pale green. The magic of the place lies in the transparency between the internal galleries and the glazed offices, and the clever circulation pattern, which leads from one end of the foyer to the other to reach the top floor.

Source: Haslam, Orbach and Voelcker, The Buildings of Wales: Gwynedd. Pevsner Architectural Guide (2009), page 304.

RCAHMW, October 2009