The National Gallery in London has selected Kengo Kuma and Associates, the Tokyo-based firm known for designing the V&A Dundee in Scotland, to design its new extension as part of Project Domani, the institution’s £750 million ($995 million) campaign to transform its campus and expand its collection into the 20th and 21st centuries.
Two UK-based firms, BDP and MICA, will collaborate with Kuma on the project, which is subject to ratification at the end of a standstill period ending April 16. The new wing will be built on the site of St. Vincent House, which currently houses a hotel and office complex and will be demolished as part of the expansion. The new wing, expected to open in the early 2030s, will add approximately 15,000 square feet of exhibition space, a roughly 15 percent increase, according to the Art Newspaper.
The wing is expected to cost around £350 million ($464 million), with the rest of the Project Domani funds expected to go toward post-1900 acquisitions and to create an endowment fund to cover operating expenses for the new wing.
The selection came after an international architectural competition that drew 65 submissions. Six architects were shortlisted in December, including Selldorf Architects, the New York firm behind the recent refurbishment of the museum’s Sainsbury Wing and the recent renovation of the Frick Collection in New York; Foster + Partners, which designed the Hong Kong International Airport and the West Kowloon Cultural District; and Renzo Piano Building Workshop, which designed the Whitney Museum and expansions for the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Piano and Foster have both won the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious award in architecture.
Given those accolades, Kuma was something of a dark horse in the competitoin. However, the jury, head up by the museum’s board chair John Booth, awarded Kuma’s design its highest score and called it “exemplary.”
In a statement, the jury called Kuma’s designs “both innovative and beautiful,” showing “sensitivity to the surrounding streets and allow[ing] natural light to be drawn into the building.” The plans call for the creation of new pedestrian-friendly zones between Leicester and Trafalgar Squares, as well as a roof garden.
In a statement, National Gallery director Gabriele Finaldi said, “Kengo Kuma’s trajectory as an architect demonstrates exceptional design elegance, a keen sensitivity to location and to history, and a supremely beautiful handling of light and of materials.”
