Kettle's Yard museum and art gallery in Cambridge has influenced interior design, architecture and art curation for some 50 years. After two years of closure and reconstruction, Veronica Simpson checks out its new incarnation

摘要

KETTLE'S YARD in Cambridge has been a mecca for contemporary art, design and architecture buffs since 1957 - ever since former Tate curator Jim Ede and his wife Helen rescued three workers' cottages from demolition and, through a few gentle, modern interventions, converted them into a welcoming home that demonstrated how perfectly appropriate contemporary art could be in a modest, domestic setting. Against a post-war mood of institutional conservatism that dismissed anything newer than a pre-Raphaelite, they brought in the work of their friends, Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Juan Miro, Naum Gabo and Constantin Brancusi, when that work had little monetary value, and made it sing through its placement alongside comfortable thrift shop and mid-century furniture and eclectic objects.