London's National Gallery Announces Architects For New £350M Wing The Art Newspaper International Art News And Events

The National Gallery in London has chosen Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and Associates to design its long-planned new extension, a £350 million project that is expected to open in the early 2030s. The building will rise on the site of St Vincent House, just north of the 1991 Sainsbury Wing, and will become the most visible architectural addition to the museum in decades.

Kuma's firm emerged from a competition that drew 65 submissions after its launch last September. Six teams were shortlisted in December, including New York-based Selldorf Architects, which recently led the refurbishment of the Sainsbury Wing. The gallery said the winning proposal stood out for its handling of light, materials, and the relationship between new construction and historic context.

In a statement, National Gallery director Garbriele Finaldi praised Kuma's“exceptional design elegance” and“keen sensitivity to location and to history.” Two UK-based practices, Building Design Partnership (BDP) and MICA, will work with the Tokyo-based firm on the project.

The extension is designed to do more than add square footage. Its ground floor will hold public facilities and temporary exhibition galleries, with street-level access that could allow some exhibitions to remain open longer hours than the permanent collection. Above that, the main and upper floors will extend the permanent display, linked by bridges to the Sainsbury Wing and the Wilkins building. Those galleries are expected to present works from the late 19th century through to the present, reflecting the gallery's revised acquisition strategy, which now extends beyond the previous cutoff of around 1900.

A roof garden at the top level will look toward Leicester Square. The exterior will be clad in light-colored Portland stone, while the interior will shift in atmosphere from floor to floor. The competition jury described the scheme as simple and clean, with vaults and arches on one level and a more geometric character above, creating a deliberate change in pace across the building.

The permanent collection will gain 1,500 square meters of space, a rise of just over 15 percent across the gallery's existing Wilkins building and Sainsbury Wing. Temporary exhibitions will receive 800 square meters on the ground floor, nearly double the 450 square meters in the Sainsbury Wing basement gallery, in addition to 240 square meters already available in the Wilkins building.

Kuma's museum work includes V&A Dundee, the Besançon Art Center in France, part of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, and numerous projects in Japan. He called the commission a privilege and said the National Gallery's collection is“a treasure of humanity.”

The extension is the central element in Domani, the gallery's wider £750 million plan, which also includes an endowment fund intended to help avoid future deficits. The institution has already begun cost-cutting measures, including a voluntary exit scheme, as it works to address a projected £8.2 million deficit by 2026-27.

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