the-sheet.com Your Architecture Resource

Local Basque officials rail against decision taken in New York to place new Guggenheim in nature reserve

The Guggenheim Museum has become the emblem of the northern Spanish city of Bilbao and its main tourist attraction, but now attempts to spread its magic by building an extension in a nearby nature reserve have run into fierce opposition.

Provincial authorities want to call an international competition for a museum extension in the bucolic surroundings of the coastal Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, 25 miles from Bilbao, hoping it will help boost the local economy in the same way the Guggenheim helped Bilbao.

"People in Urdaibai are worried because unemployment is growing and traditional industries are in decline. The museum would be a great boost," said Andoni Ortuzar, local head of the Basque Nationalist party.

The move has provoked concern that authorities might choose to place a building as loud and intrusive as the main museum, designed by Frank Gehry, in the unspoilt surroundings of a nature park which boasts some of Spain's finest surfing beaches. It has also run into the opposition of the regional Basque government, which has threatened to veto a competition.

The project has the enthusiastic backing of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which also runs museums in New York, Berlin, Venice and Abu Dhabi. The foundation's director, Richard Armstrong, told a recent conference that he wanted the Urdaibai extension to become the "first important museum of the 21st century".

The foundation, however, sees the extension as very different from the dazzling building that towers over the River Nervion in Bilbao. "It would not be an architectural icon, but a landscape one," Armstrong said.

"The idea is to repeat the success, but not the model," added the Bilbao Guggenheim director, Juan Ignacio Vidarte.

The plan aims to raze a summer camp built in 1925 in the village of Sukarrieta and replace it with "an innovative ecological museum", with an emphasis on the "creative process rather than the finished product", according to the Guggenheim chief curator, Nancy Spector.

Critics have accused the Guggenheim of looking for a free new museum, given that the Urdaibai building would be paid for by local taxpayers.

Some local commentators already complain that the big decisions affecting the Bilbao Guggenheim are made in New York. "In the really important decisions the Basque and provincial governments have only been there to give their approval to what is decided in New York," said a former adviser to the museum, Javier González de Durana.

Provincial authorities said they still hoped to persuade the Basque regional government to go ahead with the architectural competition and that, if they did not get support, they would postpone it until a new government was elected.

The Moore family has lived at Hancox, a large, Tudor house in Sussex, for five generations

Valencia has developed into one of Spain's coolest cities but, as bulldozers threaten one of its oldest and most atmospheric barrios, what is the price of such rapid progress?

"To be alone in Valencia," theatre critic Kenneth Tynan quoted an American as saying, "is to be permanently 20 minutes this side of suicide."

Spain's third-largest city has come a long way since Tynan himself dubbed it the "world capital of anti-tourism" 40 years ago. The old quarter has been tarted up, Santiago Calatrava's space-age fantasy, the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, has been virtually completed, the America's Cup sailed into town in 2007, and it hosted a Formula One grand prix a year later.

From being a slightly forlorn and forgotten sister in the Spanish family, it became a hot destination.

With so much new-found pride in their city, it was easy to imagine that Valencians would never again commit the architectural crimes of the past, that the knee-jerk cementing of the coastline and construction of characterless apartment blocks was a thing of painful memory.

We were wrong.

If you are in the Valencia area this year, be sure to visit the old fishermen's quarter, El Cabanyal. This working-class jewel of art-nouveau style – officially a "protected historical zone" – may not exist in its present form for much longer. If the city hall planners get their way, bulldozers will continue punching a large hole through the middle of it to extend a modern avenue from the city centre to the sea. Residents have protested vociferously, and the highest court in the country – the Tribunal Constitucional – has ordered a stop to the demolition, but Valencia's Mayor, Rita Barberá, has insisted she'll go ahead.

In existence since the 13th century, El Cabanyal has become the common term for what are in fact three neighbourhoods stretching north from the port – El Canyamelar, El Cabanyal and Cap de França – and owes its name to the rows of thatched fishermen's cabins, also known as barracas, that used to line the beachfront. The remains of some can be seen today, with their characteristic steep – formerly thatched – roofs.

A major fire in the late 1700s, and the growing affluence of the inhabitants as the port was expanded, meant that most barracas were replaced around the turn of the century by elegant two- and three-storey townhouses. The Moors first brought a ceramic industry to the Valencia area more than 1,000 years ago: drawing on an ancient local tradition of covering facades with brightly coloured tiles, residents finished off their new homes in the styles in fashion at the time.

Art nouveau may be the dominant flavour, but you'll find anything from baroque to eclecticism, and even a few examples of something approaching art deco. Residents will tell you that their grandparents weren't overly concerned with the purity of the design when they were building these houses – that they simply used whatever materials appealed to them. A Mediterranean sensibility to light and colour and a certain degree of keeping up with the Joneses means the area is unique, leading more than one visitor to describe it as "an open-air museum".

Concentrating on maritime shades of blue, green and white, the tiles are often spaced to create a zigzag, or checkerboard pattern, and the effect is vibrant and harmonious. You may find the face of a sea god staring out at you from above a doorway, or a mosaic depiction of pesca dels bous – a kind of dragnet fishing that involved pulling laden boats back on to the beach using oxen, a scene local artist Joaquín Sorolla depicted in some of his impressionist paintings.

This is a barrio for taking a slow stroll through, criss-crossing from one street to another, and getting to know what is still a working community with a strong sense of identity. Although El Cabanyal has officially been part of the city for centuries, the people round here still talk about "going to Valencia" if they are travelling to the city centre.

Start near the port end and wander along Carrer de la Reina. This is the main artery running north to south; all the streets are on a grid system, with the houses oriented east to west to benefit from the cooling easterly winds off the sea in the summer. As you meander along, you'll eventually cross Avinguda Mediterrània, leading from the sea to the indoor market. This is where El Cabanyal proper begins, and the area most affected by the city's plans. It is also where you'll find some of the most enchanting houses.

Find Carrer Barraca, and the streets parallel to it, and let your eyes wander. On Carrer Progrès, look out for No 262, with its turquoise-and-white tiled facade, amphora designs above the windows in mosaic, and griffin-head drains running off the terrace roof. Opposite, No 279, finished in green and white, is more sedate, but no less spectacular. Around the corner on Carrer Padre Luís Navarro, the narrow fronting of No 309 has been covered in modernist tiles with delicate vegetable motifs in green and ochre.

Many of these houses run through from one street to the next. Get chatting with the locals and you may be invited inside for a peek. Large pitch-pine doors open up into living rooms tiled with more intricate designs, with elegantly carved window frames and arched ceilings. You can even stay in one of them: the B&B Cabanyal is on Carrer Josep Benlliure (+34 963 364521. Recently renovated, it is run by a friendly young couple who are more than happy to tell you all you want to know about the local area and its traditions, or they can put you in touch with a group who provide guided walks through the streets. It's also excellent value, starting at just €20pp a night, including breakfast.

(A quick word of warning – thanks to years of official neglect and degradation, this area has become a haven for drug dealers. You're almost certainly safe, but it's best to be aware.)

Good places to eat in the Cabanyal, particularly for fish, are not hard to find. The Casa Montaña (Carrer Josep Benlliure 69) is a former bodega that has become one of the best-known restaurants/tapas bars in the city, not least for its vast wine cellar (20,000 bottles). El Cabanyal, (Carrer de la Reina 128), which is right in the planner's line of fire, is known to be frequented by the very people who now want to tear it down. Meanwhile Casa Guillermo (Carrer Progrès 15) is famous as the home of the local "anchovy king".

But my favourite is the Bodega La Pascuala (on Carrer Eugènia Viñes 177), just a street away from the beach. Noisy, busy and a bit grimy, it's an authentic neighbourhood bar, with rows of dusty brandy bottles lining the walls, and it offers cheap, working-man-size sandwiches with names such as "The Republican" and the "Bribe-Giver", and delicious paella on Friday lunchtimes. Perfect for filling up after a dip in the sea.

Thankfully, Valencia is today far from being the suicide-inducing city that Tynan knew, but as you knock back a glass of brandy, it's hard not to reflect that the place you're sitting in may soon be a pile of rubble. The future of El Cabanyal looks uncertain, but while it's still standing, visitors have a last chance to explore this unpolished gem on the Mediterranean before it is destroyed for ever.

• The neighbourhood pressure group is Plataforma Salvem el Cabanyal; its members can organise guided walks through the area. Ryanair flies to Valencia from Bournemouth, Bristol, East Midlands, Liverpool and Stansted; easyJet flies from Gatwick

Jason Webster's detective novel set in Valencia, Or the Bull Kills You, will be published by Chatto & Windus in February 2011

The legendary Paris gallery now has a regional outpost. Will it live up to the name? Jonathan Glancey takes a high-speed train to find out

This is a very strange fish. What first strikes the eye about the Pompidou-Metz is its bizarre, undulating roof. This complex structure, made of no fewer than 10 miles of laminated spruce and larch, is an extraordinary creation, drooping over the concrete, steel and glass core of the building in a seemingly random fashion, as if a passing bird had dropped a giant floppy hat on its head.

Coated in fibreglass, the roof has been shaped as much for practical reasons as for aesthetic ones – to keep sun, rain and snow at bay. It is, I can't help thinking, the building's best and most redeeming feature. Up close and on the inside, concrete, steel and glass take over, while every glance upwards allows another view of this glorious timber form.

The Pompidou Centre in Paris, opened in 1977, is one of the most visited art galleries in the world. So it makes perfect sense that it should choose to expand – creating this regional outpost in Metz, north-east France, a short, sensationally fast (1hr 25mins) TGV ride away from the capital. The Pompidou-Metz, rising up as if from the ocean like a great conch, was meant to open three years ago, but such experimental architecture rarely goes exactly to plan, and I suspect that roof might be to blame. It is now seven years since the design contest was won by a team comprising Shigeru Ban (Tokyo), Jean de Gastines (Paris) and Philip Gumuchdjian (London). Their curious new building, due to open next month, is just two minutes walk from the town's magnificent central station, designed like a castle by German architect Jürgen Kröger in the early 1900s.

Just as the original Pompidou was designed to reinvent a large area of central Paris, so the Pompidou-Metz forms the centrepiece of the city's amphitheatre quarter, a district formerly given over to industry. It is, by any standards, an important building: much cultural pride rides on its curving shoulders, locally and nationally. And for Metz, a city not on the regular tourist beat, here is a chance to reinvent itself.

So does the new gallery pull it off? Beneath that hat, the building at first feels all over the place, its galleries, cafes and intervening public spaces rushing off in all directions. Fishier and fishier. Yet some sort of logic does start to emerge. You enter a lobby, with the usual cafe, bookshop and so on, before entering the forum, a soaring space for displaying large-scale installations (since the advent of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, every gallery needs one). Above and through this vast space, three huge concrete tubes crisscross, with windows at either end. These are the three principal galleries, reached by stairs or lift in the central 77-metre tall tower, which stands like the mast on a ship, skewering your attention. Each space has been carefully crafted to offer framed views of the city's monuments, including Kröger's fairytale station.

What curious galleries these are: concrete corridors in the air relying, to a great degree, on artificial lighting in an era when it has become commonplace for galleries to demand diffused daylight everywhere. Ban points out the advantages: these galleries are entirely free of columns, or any other interruption, so offer seamless spaces for showcasing art. In any case, this is meant to be as radical a building as the original Pompidou, which stunned the world with its own big idea: wearing its insides outside, it looked for all the world like a brightly painted North Sea oil rig.

The architects were well aware of the extraordinary story of Metz itself when putting their design together. Perilously close to the border with Germany, Metz has changed hands many times. This sense of flux invades the fabric of this new building – in the sense that nothing is wholly certain here and anything, culturally, can happen. Even the funding reflects this flux: although fundamentally a French project, the €69m (£61m) Pompidou-Metz has also been funded by the EU.

Five centuries of masterpieces

Its tall tower leads up to a rooftop cafe-restaurant, a viewing gallery, and a studio intended for live performances, particularly of an experimental type. From up here, the building looks and feels more like the big top of a circus, with views out to new landscaped gardens planted with cherry trees. Throughout, though, this is a strange and ambivalent building. It has the feeling of being a book of bits rather than a considered, tightly edited volume. This may be the point: such spatial oddity and aesthetic uncertainty goes, I think, to the heart of the Pompidou-Metz project. The idea here is that anything might go – that art, architecture and curatorship is an adventure rather than an ordained or highly governed experience.

Like its predecessor, the Pompidou-Metz will take some getting used to. Much, of course, turns on the quality and variety of what goes on show; the first major exhibition will be an ambitious attempt to find out what makes a masterpiece by displaying 800 art works drawn from the past five centuries. What is for sure, though, is that the gallery is not some opportunistic franchise, there to cash in on the Pompidou name, but an art centre in its own right, intended to have an identity very much its own.

Although the product of team work, the design bears many of the hallmarks of Ban, an American-educated Japanese architect celebrated for his work with unexpected materials: houses made from recycled paper tubes, a museum made from 156 shipping containers. Ban has the knack of conjuring inventive buildings from very little. The Pompidou-Metz, and certainly its roof, is very much his kind of structure.

Ban describes it as a "crustacean". When I look back at this provocative new building from the gaping mouth of Metz-Ville station, sunlight flashes off its roof, making it vanish for a moment – as if it had slid back into some primordial sea.

From Venice to Vegas: Other gallery outposts

The idea of creating branches of established museums is not a new one. In 1969, Peggy Guggenheim handed the collections in her Venetian palazzo to her uncle Solomon, making it a European outpost of his famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum in New York. London's Tate opened its first regional outpost, Tate Liverpool, in 1988, in a magnificent warehouse given a makeover by James Stirling. Tate St Ives, designed by Evans and Shalev, followed five years later.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the regional Tates are all galleries with their own special characters, collections and displays; it would be unfair to call any of them clones. But what has changed in recent years is the idea of the museum or gallery "franchise": a branch of the Guggenheim, Louvre or Hermitage borrowing shows, most of its ideas and content, and, most importantly, its name from a parent institution.

Since the 1990s, the Guggenheim has opened new branches around the world, even in Las Vegas (a failure: it closed in 2003). Las Vegas was also host to the hybrid Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, which closed in 2008. Frank Gehry designed the eye-popping branch in Bilbao, while future Guggenheims are under construction in Guadalajara, Mexico (due to open in 2011) and Abu Dhabi (Frank Gehry again, 2011). The first major Louvre branch, a giant mushroom designed by Jean Nouvel (below), is taking shape in Abu Dhabi for 2012. In London, the Victoria and Albert museum is preparing to venture beyond the confines of South Kensington: the first V&A "abroad" will be built in Dundee, Scotland.

In architectural terms, the danger is that these can be expensive, over-the-top projects, parachuted into far-off countries without the subtlety that comes from architects working within the confines and discipline of cities they know well. Given carte blanche, there is a tendency to design something a little too wilful or impermanent.

An old rhyme gives Dixe Wills the excuse to celebrate an overlooked corner of Wales on St David's Day

"Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,
Snowdon's mountain without its people,
Overton yew trees, St Winefride's wells,
Llangollen bridge and Gresford bells"
 
Penned by an anonymous 18th-century English traveller, this piece of doggerel, called the Seven Wonders of Wales, probably owes its survival to the fact that, unlike the Eight Wonders of the World, all the Welsh marvels cited are still with us. Furthermore, since six of them are in a small pocket in the north-east of the country, you can collect the set in a long weekend.

So it was that I found myself cycling high into the Berwyn Mountains in search of Pistyll Rhaeadr, a waterfall, which at 240 feet, is a true Welsh wonder. There can't be many outdoor attractions that are best seen in the rain, but a waterfall is one of them. High above my head, the rain-swollen river Rhaeadr tumbled over the precipice in thick silver threads. A further six hours of solid downpour rather took the edge off my exultation.

The cosiness of Cornerstones – an extraordinary B&B that has fused together three of Llangollen's 16th-century houses – was thus a welcome sight, and I was soon looking down at a heron stalking the River Dee, just a couple of wing flaps from the medieval Llangollen bridge.
 
Of course, not everyone can get excited about the art of spanning rivers. However, even the least ardent fan would have to admit to the graciousness of these particular arches, each one a slightly different size to fit neatly on to the rocks below. But it's the setting that really makes it – Llangollen's jumble of black-and-white houses swiftly giving way to wooded hills beyond – and in the glorious morning sunshine the pinky fawn stones positively shone in the morning sunlight.
 
The rest of my day was to be spent with yews, a steeple, a set of bells and some curative waters – not always the first things that spring to mind when considering wonders. However, I will confess that there is something about the way that yews rage against the dying of the light: some managing it for thousand of years. The 23 standing guard around Overton's St Mary's church are relative youngsters but some still go back to the Middle Ages.
 
At St Giles' church in nearby Wrexham, a stone bears the faded legend, "This steeple was completed in 1506." The difficulty is that the "steeple" is clearly a tower. A very fine 147-foot sandstone tower, it has to be said and, when I went up on to its roof, I was able to testify that it also commanded extraordinary views of mountains to the west and the Dee valley to the east. However, a steeple it is not.
 
Once upon a time, before we all became so noisy, you would have been able to hear Gresford bells in Wrexham, even though Gresford is three miles away. Gresford's Tower Captain, Hilton Roberts, took me up a stone spiral staircase and introduced me to the monsters. Bell ringing, he told me, is a perfect fusion of music and science. Peals may have fanciful names like Stedman Triples and Yorkshire Surprise Major, but they are strictly governed by mathematical formulae. Logical thinkers they may be, but bell ringers are evidently also touched by a streak of eccentricity. We were up above the bells when Hilton, no spring chicken, suddenly jumped down on to one and started swinging on it, Tarzan-like, just so that I could hear what it sounded like. I was three yards away. It was loud.

It was another sort of madness that brought about St Winefride's well. A rejected suitor called Caradog sliced off young Winefride's head and where it fell a miraculous spring gushed forth. "People from all over the world come here now," a warden told me, kindly handing me a bottle of freshly drawn water. The well itself is a rather wonderful star-shape that feeds water to a pool in which the sick and ailing lower themselves to be healed.
 
I mentioned my visit to Paulene at Celyn Villa, my home from home for the night, asking her if she knew anyone who'd been miraculously cured.
 
"Ah well, strange you should say that," she replied. "I had a verruca for years that wouldn't respond to any treatment whatsoever. I dipped it in the pool and it went away completely."
 
I'm hanging on to that bottle.
 
Bright and early next morning the happy chatter of fellow train passengers accompanied me round the north coast to Bangor and the final wonder, Snowdon. The donkey ride from Llanberis to the top, which our poet may well have enjoyed, was replaced in 1896 by the mountain railway. I confess to having felt slightly guilty as the tiny steam engine strained to push our single carriage upwards, but this was partially assuaged by the fact that I was only going as far as Clogwyn, three-quarters of the way, where I joined a long thin line of people marching to the top.
 
It was quite a party at the summit: 70 or 80 of us – families, groups of friends, a school field trip, a number of very sprightly pensioners – all excited about having conquered Wales' tallest mountain. And why not? Given a clear day it's possible to see Ireland's Wicklow Mountains from here. Having arrived just before the brand new £8m summit visitor centre was officially opened, I whipped out a flask of tea for my celebratory toast: I had succeeded in visiting all seven wonders of Wales.
 
Or had I? The poem clearly stipulated "Snowdon's mountain without its people". Well now, I mused, as I sauntered back down to Llanberis, that would be a wonder.
 

Way to go

Virgin Trains Single from London to Chester from £8 return; 08457 222333; virgintrains.com. Arriva Trains Wales, single from Chester to Gobowen £6.50 return, and Bangor to Chester £22.20 return; 0870 9000773, arrivatrainswales.co.uk.

Snowdon Mountain Railway Llanberis to summit return, adult £23, child £16; 0871 7200033; snowdonrailway.co.uk.

Cornerstones B&B, Llangollen. Doubles from £70; +44 (0)1978 861569, cornerstones-guesthouse.co.uk.

Celyn Villa, Carmel Near Holywell. Doubles from £56; +44 (0)1352 710853, celynvilla.co.uk.

St Winefride's Well, Holywell. Adult 80p, child 20p; +44 (0)1352 713054, saintwinefrideswell.com.

Luke Harding on Moscow's plan to demolish artists' village

Wilton's, the world's oldest music hall, is east London's most atmospheric gig venue, having played host to dramatic events for 182 years - from the Battle of Cable Street to live gigs by The Magic Numbers

Guardian architecture critic Jonathan Glancey discovers three exquisite places of worship sitting in the shadows of the Square Mile's financial giants

Guardian architecture critic Jonathan Glancey discovers three exquisite places of worship sitting in the shadows of the Square Mile's financial giants

Ouseburn's once derelict factories and warehouses are buzzing again with artists' studios, music venues and cinemas. Stephen Emms guides us around

Ouseburn was, until 10 years ago, a monument to an industrial past, its derelict factories, red-brick warehouses and mills lurking in the shadow of Victorian bridges and viaducts less than a mile from Newcastle city centre. Now, this picturesque valley, either side of the river Ouse (once used to carry coal by boat from Spital Tongues down to waiting barges on the Tyne), is the creative heart of Newcastle.

Following years of post-industrial decline, its regeneration, kick-started by community-driven enterprise rather than corporate business (the Ouseburn Trust in partnership with the local authority), has given the area's unique architecture and riverside setting a new lease of life – in the form of artists' studios, live music venues, an independent cinema and galleries. Here's a quick tour to get you started.

1. Cumberland Arms

Not just the best pub in Ouseburn, but arguably the finest in Newcastle itself. Built in 1836 (owner Jo will show you the hatch where women, refused entrance to the main bar, used to be served), it's boozer heaven: wood-panelled, roaring fire, simple furniture, leaded windows, a smattering of salvaged art, and shelves heaving with paperbacks. Session ale is the "Rapper", named after the Northumberland sword dance, and there are six guests, as well as 12 types of cider. An upstairs room plays host to music, theatre and comedy. Its isolated position overlooking the valley means stunning views not only from its terrace, but also the windows of its four spacious, very comfortable bedrooms.

• James Place St, +44 (0)191 265 6151, thecumberlandarms.co.uk.Doubles from £70 a night including breakfast.

2. Star & Shadow Cinema

A converted former prop department for Tyne Tees Television, this tiny cinema is run by volunteers, from film programming and projecting, to gigs and promotion. Every year there is a charmingly named "Building Festival" where volunteers come and help build, improve and restore. One Sunday a month there is a "Make & Mend" arts, crafts and flea market. Meetings every Monday at 6pm, films every Thursday and Sunday, and gigs, films, club nights and art events programmed on Weds, Fri and Sat.
• Stepney Bank, +44 (0)191 261 0066, starandshadow.org.uk. Open daily.

3. Biscuit Factory

Britain's biggest commercial art gallery is a whopping 35,000 square feet over two floors of exhibition spaces and artists' studios. Paintings, drawings prints, ceramics, and jewellery including artists such as Emma Tooth (whose Concilium Plebis are Caravaggio-style portraits of those dismissed as "chavs and hoodies"), and Maria Rivan's stunning 3D collages. My tip is to refresh yourself at the café, which groans with inviting home-made sandwiches and cakes, while contemplating the industrial views over the Byker Wall (see below), rather than at the blandly-furnished, expensive restaurant.

• Stoddart St, +44 (0)191 261 1103, thebiscuitfactory.com. Open daily

4. The Cluny

A former whisky bottling plant a stottie's throw from Byker Bridge, The Cluny is owned by iconic party boozer the Head Of Steam (worth a visit, opposite Newcastle Central Station). As well as a live venue, which showcases both young Geordie bands and international artists, the simple main bar and lounge (runner-up in the Observer Food Monthly's awards 2006 for best quick eat in north-east) offers local ales and informal yet hearty snacks, such as good quality house salads (£6), home-made burgers (£6) and Sunday roasts (£7).

• 36 Lime Street, +44 (0)191 2304474, theheadofsteam.co.uk.

5. Seven Stories

The first museum in the UK dedicated to the art of British children's books protects the heritage of British classics for families and curious adults alike. Temporary exhibitions at the former flour mill (such as the current retrospective for Tiger Who Came To Tea author Judith Kerr, which runs until May 2010) complement the permanent collection, whose earliest acquisition was Puffin Books editor (and Puffin Club founder) Kaye Webb's archive. Philip Pullman is a great supporter and has given work from the His Dark Materials trilogy and the Sally Lockhart quartet. The huge bookshop is free to enter, as is one of the best cafes in Ouseburn, which offers sleepy views over the Ouse – and great mugs of coffee.

• 30 Lime Street, + 44 (0)845 271 0777, sevenstories.org.ukpen Mon-Sat 10-5pm, £5.50 adults £4.50 children

6. Mushroom Works

The scream of gulls and clink and hammer of the docks fill the air outside this hard-to-find gallery, originally a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, in an area once known as the "Mushroom". Opened in 2004 by furniture-maker Nick James, there are 12 studios, including painters, illustrators, jewellery makers, animators, architects, and glass artists. They host eight exhibitions a year, and the shop, with its emphasis on affordability, currently stocks work by 32 artists. The Stairwell Gallery has just opened upstairs, given over to exhibitions by other artists. A 50% off "studio sale" runs from Jan 9-Feb 6.

• St Lawrence Road, +(0)191 224 4011, mushroomworks.com. Open 12pm-5pm Weds-Sat.

7. Northern Print

Northern Print began life in 1994 on Fish Quay, North Shields, and moved in 2006 to a former pottery in Ouseburn. Now a gallery and contemporary print-making studio offering affordable prints as well as classes, it's worth also spending a penny in ceramic artist Paul Scott's impressive tiled toilet. Also, don't miss the large screen-prints decorating the sides of the offices opposite.

• Stepney Bank, +44 (0)191 261 7000,northernprint.org.uk. Open Weds to Sat 12pm to 4pm.

8. Byker Wall

Set between the roar of the flyover and silence of the river, the Grade II-listed Byker Wall, a 1970s primary-coloured brick, wood and plastic-built unbroken block of 620 maisonettes, was placed on UNESCO's list of outstanding 20th-century buildings. Designed by Ralph Erskine in Functionalist Romantic style, the low-rise construction represented a break with the high-rise architectural orthodoxy of the time. Its iconic, triangular Tom Collins House is visible from miles around.

9. Victoria Tunnel

Testament to the achievement of Victorian labour, this two-mile tunnel was built in 1838 for transporting coal from Spital Tongues colliery on the Town Moor to the river Tyne, and in the second world war converted to an air-raid shelter. A short section, with its last remaining accessible entrance on Ouse Street (behind the Hotel Du Vin, see below) re-opened in 2008 to give visitors and locals an experience deep below the city.

• newcastlecommunityheritage.org.

10. Hotel Du Vin

The first hotel in Ouseburn opened in 2008 in the former headquarters of the Tyne Tees Steam Shipping Company, which once served as the company's maintenance depot and storeroom. As such, a nautical theme pervades the 42 rooms, many of which have outstanding views over the Tyne Bridge. Its glass and brick bistro is the most glamorous evening eating option in Ouseburn, even if you're not a resident (great value too with two-course menus boasting locally-sourced ingredients from £15.50).

• Allan House, City Road, +44 (0)191 229 2200, hotelduvin.com/newcastle. Standard rooms from £160. On Sunday nights, spend £75 in the bistro and room is only £25 if you book online.

• Newcastle is served by East Coast Trains: for the best deal on advance fares, book online via nationalexpresseastcoast.com, or call 08457 225225.