Newtown Oriel Davies Gallery refurb plans approved
Plans to refurbish and alter Newtown's art gallery have been given the green light.
The project at Oriel Davies includes a new spotlight gallery and library, refurbished café with a grab-and-go window and amphitheatre seating.
The current educational rooms, offices, toilets, retail and gallery spaces will also be updated.
The planning approval follows the reopening of the gallery following more than six months of work on the roof as part of a redevelopment project worth almost £1million funded by the Welsh Government through the Arts Council of Wales.
The recent roof revamp on the single-story building in The Park aims to allow works from the national collection to go on display in Newtown alongside contemporary visual art.
Oriel Davies Gallery said: 'We want to make our space even more accessible, develop civic spaces, improve our retail and welcome space, learning studio, improve the toilet facilities and make it possible to open up different zones of the building at different times.
'A major part of this phase will be to increase the number of loans so that we can bring the Davies sisters' collection back to the area and tell their story and the impact they have had.'
The gallery is a pavilion style red brick building that was designed in 1967 by architect Alex Gordon and built using a legacy left by Wales' foremost collectors of fine art Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, who lived in mid Wales throughout their lives including at Plas Dinam and Gregynog Hall.
Following the gallery's reopening, Oriel Davies has launched an evolving exhibition beginning on the streets of Newtown before moving into the gallery and developing over the summer months.
The exhibition is opening with a selection of images by Geoff Charles whose contribution to Welsh photography is unique and was the photographer of record in Welsh-speaking Wales for most of that period.
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