Redesign will turn National Gallery ‘into an airport lounge’

A SCHEME to redesign the post-modern Sainsbury Wing in the National Gallery will turn it into an “airport lounge”, architects and historians have said.

The plans to rework the Grade I-listed building have been criticised by a range of organisations including the Twentieth Century Society and a group of former presidents of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba).

In their letter criticising the plans, the eight former Riba presidents wrote: “[The] proposed changes are to our minds insensitive and inappropriately changes a finely conceived space into an airport lounge.

“Their plans involve making drastic and irreversible changes. They have applied to gut the ground and first (mezzanine) floor to provide an espresso bar and cafeteria which will irreversibly alter the character of the building.

“It feels as if the architect is trying to jam a modern building into the guts of the Sainsbury Wing and wholly change its character.”

The Sainsbury Wing opened 31 years ago and is the only UK work of American architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

Catherine Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society, said that their design contributes to the “splendour and grandeur” of the National Gallery as a whole and builds visitors’ “sense of anticipation”.

Other critics of the scheme include architect Richard Pain, who has studied Venturi and Brown’s work for 40 years.

He branded the intention to cut a hole in the main stairwell to bring more light into the entrance hall of the gallery’s Postmodern addition as “just vandalism”. Revisions submitted to the proposals last month by Selldorf Architects, the New York-based practice responsible for the renovation, have failed to reassure the critics.

A report published by planning officers ahead of a committee meeting on Tuesday has recommended the proposals are given approved despite the concerns.

The document claims that the plans would “result in significant and weighty public benefits”, including improved accessibility for visitors entering the

gallery. Westminster City Council says the Sainsbury Wing has become the de facto main entrance for the National Gallery and therefore needs to be altered to accommodate for that.

Historic England argues “the harm is no more than is necessary to secure the objectives that have been identified by the gallery as being key to the project”.

Speaking to the Architects’ Journal, Annabelle Selldorf, founder of Selldorf Architects, said that the plans are designed to meet “very different visitor expectations” from those in 1991, when the Sainsbury Wing opened.