We Made That creates National Trust drawing room

The consultancy says the Croome Withdrawing Room is a ‘contemplative space’ that will act as a piece of inhabitable furniture in the unfurnished Blue Damask Room when it opens tomorrow. 

Supported by a £15 000 Heritage Lottery Fund development award and the National Trust’s contemporary art programme Trust New Art, We Made That was appointed in November 2010 after a pitch in October that year.

Briefed to present spaces of the 18th-century property in new ways, this is one of several potential options taken forward.

‘Through archive research and participative workshops with National Trust staff, volunteers and visitors, we explored contemporary notions of withdrawing and developed what we hope people will find an appealing space for thought and reflection within the house,’ says We Made That partner Oliver Goodhall.

The installation will be made up of the carved layers of a diaphanous Kvadrat fabric. Goodhall says viewers can look out of its soft folds through the ‘lightweight, open-weave gauze made of Trevira’ to glimpse the building’s Capability Brown-designed gardens and draw attention to interior highlights.

These include ‘a spectacular ceiling, marble fireplace and Robert Adams-designed doors’, says Goodhall. ‘People used to breeze through this room, but now the conversation can turn to the features,’ he adds.