The Nationwide Gallery in London has introduced that Tokyo-based architect Kengo Kuma and Associates, in collaboration with UK corporations BDP and MICA, will design a significant new wing – the gallery’s most vital enlargement in two centuries.
The choice follows a world competitors launched in September 2025, which shortlisted practices together with Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Farshid Moussavi and Annabelle Selldorf. Ultimately, nonetheless, the jury awarded Kuma’s design the very best rating, praising it as ‘each revolutionary and delightful, assembly the ambition and sensitivity required for a world gallery fee’.
(Picture credit score: Kin Creatives)
The £350 million wing, anticipated to open within the early 2030s, will likely be constructed on the location of St Vincent Home, a Sixties lodge and workplace complicated owned by the gallery, simply north of the Sainsbury Wing (which was revamped final yr). Clad in Portland stone, the brand new addition will function landscaped gardens and a rooftop terrace overlooking Leicester Sq..
Inside, the bottom flooring will host public services and short-term exhibition galleries. The primary gallery flooring will echo the Sainsbury Wing with vaulted arches and easy, clear interiors, whereas the higher flooring will undertake a extra geometric design, described by the jury as including ‘selection and a change of design tempo’. A bridge will join the brand new wing to each the Sainsbury Wing and the unique Wilkins constructing.
(Picture credit score: Kin Creatives)
The enlargement will add 1,500 sq. metres of everlasting hanging area – a 15 % enhance – and 800 sq. metres of short-term exhibition area, almost doubling the capability of the Sainsbury Wing basement.
The brand new wing is central to Mission Domani, a £750 million initiative to redefine the gallery for the approaching century. The undertaking additionally marks a shift in its assortment technique: beforehand centered on works as much as round 1900, consistent with a longstanding settlement with Tate, the Nationwide Gallery will now show work from the late nineteenth century to the current, making it the one museum on this planet the place guests can expertise your complete historical past of Western portray.
Kuma, whose initiatives embrace the V&A Dundee and Tokyo Olympic Stadium, described it as ‘a privilege’ to work on the enlargement, including that ‘the Nationwide Gallery’s assortment is a treasure of humanity’.
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