NPG 079
Left Built upon Victorian ideals, the NPG initially displayed the portraits of deceased British notables
Right The NPG now also hosts the portraits of more contemporary figures
Below left The NPG’s new entrance and forecourt on the gallery’s north facade
Below Aside from paintings, the NPG is also home to a collection of more than 250,000 original photographs
‘Europe has a great deal of art, and America has a great deal of money’
creating a piazza in front of the original north elevation facing up the Charing Cross Road, a £30m proposal that became too complex, too costly, and was eventually dropped. In 1993, John Miller redesigned the ground floor of the original building into galleries for the 20th century collection, and to develop a new temporary exhibition gallery, overall increasing display space by 30 percent. To accommodate the offices that Miller’s design did away with, three adjacent buildings on the corner of Orange Street and Charing Cross Road, acquired in 1989 were converted by Alex Murray and Neil Morgan of Grimley JR Eve. In 1996, Piers Gough of CZWG remodelled galleries on the first floor, and then the big one was back on and being seriously reconsidered. At last, the long-planned, and always postponed, second major extension may finally happen.
Tis occupied former service yard, a narrow strip of land between the National Gallery and the NPG, was completed in 2000. It was funded by the Sri Lankan-Canadian businessman, adventurer and philanthropist Christopher Ondaatje, cost £13.2m and was designed by
Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones. Te result was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2001. Te project was only completed 20 years ago, and yet now the NPG is being made over once again. Tis time, at a cost of £41.3m, and the experienced gallery team of Jamie Fobert, Max Fordham et al were brought in following a competition. Even before the last extension was in place, the gallery had struggled with its Victorian inheritance to attract people to visit its superlative collection – other than when Roy Strong was director. And it appeared a poor and at times shabby neighbour beside its illustrious neighbour.
Enter Charles Saumarez Smith as director, and the building rose via a spectacular escalator that went on forever as one rose to its fine rooftop café, and CSS rose with it. Smith was at the Portrait Gallery from 1994 to 2002, the National Gallery from 2002 to 2007, and the Royal Academy for eleven years after that. At the first he presided over the Dixon Jones project; with the same architects he saw a new ground floor entrance, shop, coffee bar and self-service restaurant at the second (a Neil MacGregor
LEFT: GARETH GARDNER / NISSEN RICHARDS STUDIO ABOVE: JIM STEPHENSON
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