August 2025

In 2011, Martine photographed Sir Trevor Dannatt’s 1962 Jewry Wall Museum and Vaughan College in Leicester for RIBA’s 50:50 Best Buildings of the East Midlands book. Site of a 2,000 year old Grade 1 listed Roman Wall and remains of a bath house, Dannatt’s museum building is a modernist masterpiece. Closed in 2017 for restoration, but subsequently subject to a myriad of delays, the project finally reopened its doors this summer, and across July and August, Martine & Paul captured the first few days of operation.

It was great to be working with London- based Levitate Architects, whom Martine has partnered with several times in the past to capture their projects. With the immersive exhibition galleries designed by Haley Sharpe, Levitate’s re-interpretation of a space which had been covered up by years of paint and carpet, now reveals Dannatt’s skilful concrete shuttering and massive roof beams spanning the visitor spaces and cantilevering out to the roman site itself. The before and afters make for fascinating comparison – the library becomes the shop, the theatre is now the immersive screen room, whilst the galleries themselves take the public on a richly informed journey into Leicester’s early history. Just watch this project win awards in the coming months……