Success as an architect came late to Eldred Evans, who has died aged 85. In 1989, she and her life/work partner David Shalev won a competition to design a branch of the Tate Gallery in St Ives, Cornwall. Tucked against the hillside behind modern housing, the building announced itself by a circular entrance, built on the foundations of the town’s former gasholder to keep within budget.
Opened in 1993, the gallery attracted many more visitors than anticipated – 120,000 in six months – and the entrance that had seemed so extravagant rapidly became too small. The Evans & Shalev practice returned to add an education room in 2017 as part of an expansion scheme by Jamie Fobert that broadly respected their original work.
