Lathams designed and delivered Ceramica, a museum and visitor attraction in Burslem, Stoke on Trent, built as a celebration of the ceramics industry past and present. The project started with Burslems Old Town Hall, a Grade II listed building which had suffered from neglect but had now been identified as the perfect home for this exciting new millennium project. The building would require careful refurbishment and re-planning, drawing on Lathams expertise in conservation and re-use. However, it quickly became clear that the building would only be able to accommodate the exhibits and education facilities a new building would be required to accommodate a cafe and shop. Lathams design for the new pavilion building took on a strong celebratory form, rejecting the symmetry of the Old Town Hall and taking inspiration from the work of the Russian Supremicist painter Malevic. The steel and glass shard of modernism acts as the foil to the classicism of the Old Town Hall. The roof, a lifting dart of copper, is supported at its high end by a slender ceramic needle centred on the foundations of Josiah Wedgwood's original bottle kiln. The landscape space around the scheme creates relief from the density of the town centre, creating a safe, accessible and stimulating environment, and the overall fusion of the historic with the futuristic works to stimulate a sense of optimism in the future and to revitalise an area formerly in decline.