National Gallery contest invites architects to design £375m ‘transformation’

This article was first published by Arts Professional.

The National Gallery is to embark on the “largest transformation” in its 200 years, with the creation of an entirely new wing.

Architects from across the globe are to be invited to design the development, in a competition launching for entries tomorrow (10 September).

The London museum has raised £375 million to support Project Domani – meaning ‘tomorrow’ in Italian – with the sum apparently including the two largest publicly reported single cash donations to a museum or gallery in the world.

It will see the gallery create an extension that reaches out into the space between Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square, along the building’s north-south axis.

Along with an ambitious capital works project, the National Gallery has recently announced its intended assembly of a citizens jury, designed to have people up and down the country inform and shape its future.

Director of public engagement at the museum, Jane Knowles, last month told Arts Professional the jury would represent the UK’s diversity of background and experience, adding: “Assemblies are used very widely at local government level, but within the cultural sector I think it’s more burgeoning.”

Meanwhile, news of a fresh wing for the building is accompanied by the announcement that the gallery will be looking to collaborate more extensively on partnerships with the likes of Tate and other museum groups.