Sainsbury Centre

The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts stands on the western edge of the University of East Anglia campus beside the River Yare. Designed by Norman Foster and Wendy Cheesman, it opened in 1978 as one of the first major public buildings by the architects. The building is a large steel-clad cuboid with one face almost entirely glazed, allowing natural light to flood the interior. Services and maintenance areas sit in triangular towers around the edges, leaving the central space open and flexible. An underground extension added in 1991 curves around a man-made lake, its glass frontage barely visible from the lawns above. The centre houses the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, donated in 1973 and now numbering several thousand works spanning over 5,000 years. The collection includes sculptures by Henry Moore scattered across the university grounds and pieces by Jacob Epstein, Alberto Giacometti, and Francis Bacon. African art is represented by a Fang Reliquary Head from Gabon and a Head of an Oba from Nigeria, alongside works from Asia, the Americas, the Pacific, medieval Europe, and the ancient Mediterranean. In 2023, the centre adopted a new ethos called ‘Living Art Sharing Stories’, treating artworks as active participants in human experience. Visitors find a vast open interior where light shifts through aluminium louvres and glazed walls. Henry Moore’s sculptures stand among the trees outside, while the underground wing opens onto a curved glass wall overlooking the lake. The building’s design allows artworks to be rearranged easily, encouraging fresh connections with each visit. Temporary displays and programmes explore how art answers life’s biggest questions, linking objects across centuries and cultures. The centre’s approach invites people to build relationships with the works rather than simply observe them.