Few parts of any city have seen so many style wars waged over their future as the north-west corner of Trafalgar Square. Nelson may be safely ensconced on his column, but another Battle of Trafalgar has been rumbling for decades beneath his feet, seeing architectural grenades hurled to and fro at the western end of the National Gallery.
A 1950s competition first produced a bold brutalist plan to extend the gallery, formed of crisscrossing cantilevered planes jutting out into the square, but it was deemed too daring. The 1980s saw a glassy, hi-tech proposal, crowned with futuristic pylons, but it was famously dismissed by the then Prince Charles as a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”. Finally, emerging victorious in the 1990s were the US pioneers of postmodernism Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Their high mannerist mashup combined corinthian pilasters and big tinted windows with witty abandon. “Palladio and modernism fight it out on the main facade,” declared the architects, as they immortalised the battle of taste in stone and glass. The Sainsbury Wing was Grade-I listed in 2018, one of the youngest ever buildings to receive such protection.
But that wasn’t the end of it. The latest volley in the style wars lands this week, launched by the Cologne-born, New York-based architect Annabelle Selldorf, in the form of a tranquillising bullet of international museum world good taste. Marking the key component of the National Gallery’s £85m programme of capital works for its 200th anniversary, Selldorf’s project sees the Sainsbury Wing transformed into the museum’s main entrance, providing an accessible welcome for all – after decades of some climbing the stepped portico, while others were sent around the side.
It is “lighter, more welcoming, and more visible”, says gallery director Gabriele Finaldi, and more approachable for “anyone who thinks that the National Gallery is not for them”. It is indeed a brighter, more open place to arrive, with fewer cluttering columns, a lot more daylight, and new double-height spaces sliced through the first floor, bringing an airy sense of volume. The grand processional staircase, and the acclaimed galleries beyond, remain untouched, while the underground auditorium has been spruced up, with newly upholstered seating and a more generous foyer. But has the revamp done irreparable harm to a beloved postmodern icon?
When the Sainsbury Wing first opened in 1991, it was not loved. It was variously slammed as “a vulgar American piece of postmodern mannerist pastiche” and “picturesque mediocre slime”. It was too traditional for modernists and too playful for traditionalists. Its dark, low-ceilinged entrance was damned as “a nasty cellar-like space” cluttered with a maze of (non-structural) columns. “It just didn’t work,” says the gallery’s deputy director, Paul Gray, adding that visitor numbers have swelled from three million back then to approaching six million now. The wing was never intended to handle such volumes. “The modern visitor expects so much more now. They want big, open, welcoming spaces, and it never felt like that.”
But time garners affection. And there is nothing like the threat of change to arouse fondness. When Selldorf’s modernising plans were first unveiled in 2022, the same critics who had pooh-poohed Venturi Scott Brown’s design leapt to its defence. Eight former RIBA presidents came out against the “insensitive” changes that would turn this “finely conceived space into an airport lounge”. The Twentieth Century Society expressed “grave concerns” that the project would “cause substantial harm”. Others called it “an act of vandalism”. Denise Scott Brown, now 93, was livid. “[Selldorf is] making our building look like a circus clown,” she fumed. “This is a circus clown wearing a tutu.”
The architects went back to the drawing board. The bland Gap store aesthetic was toned down. Proposed timber columns were exchanged for stone, in keeping with the original, while some colourful Egyptian-headed columns, formerly to be swept away, have been retained and relocated. “We managed to keep more of the existing fabric,” says Alasdair Travers, partner at conservation architects Purcell, who worked with Selldorf on the project, “and there was a greater concentration on the sort of heaviness of the original design.” Scott Brown remained unconvinced. She accused the architects of treating the building “as if it were a Lego set”. Messing around with a Grade-I listed building in such a way, she warned, “will affect all future cathedrals”.
Standing in Trafalgar Square, the Sainsbury Wing is now more visible than ever. A new sign on the cornice announces its presence, the letterforms pleasingly folding around the building’s unruly facets in a playful, pomo manner. A fenced-off courtyard has been opened up, providing extra space for queueing crowds to gather. The swathes of dark tinted glass have been replaced with conservation-safe clear glass, making the interior more inviting.
“We have tried to dignify the original vision,” says Selldorf, “and give it a vitamin shot.” She is standing on the new stone forecourt, in front of the bunching staccato columns, when she looks up and frowns. “I never understood this building,” she admits. “I remember coming and thinking: ‘Well, whatever.’ There are all these architectural elements, and the sort of cumbersome entrance was, if nothing else, unpleasant.” She describes the old tinted glass curtain wall, along the building’s eastern flank, as “too weird for words – calling it Miesian is really an insult to Mies”. She argues that Venturi Scott Brown’s justification for their low, dark entrance – which they compared to entering a church crypt before ascending to the light – was merely post-rationalisation. “Tell me one church where you enter through the crypt,” she says. “It doesn’t exist!”
Stepping inside, where stygian gloom once prevailed, there now glows a huge digital screen, covering the entire back wall of the newly wide-open lobby, cycling through details from the National Gallery’s collection. As I arrive, Caravaggio’s Jesus gestures towards a new espresso bar on the left. Or maybe he is pointing to the tiny information desk, which stands to one side, marooned in a vast expanse of pale stone paving – a change from the darker granite, to lighten things up. Meanwhile, a disciple, points to the lifts, which are now visible thanks to the removal of some of the hefty stone columns.
A swooping cut in the ceiling provides glimpses of the new bookshop and Locatelli restaurant upstairs (where the airport lounge vibe remains), while another cut to the left creates a double-height space above the cafe. There is 60% more space than before, and it all feels quite empty, but the gallery says that’s the point: it needs this volume to handle the crowds.
“Before, you came in and you didn’t know where you were going,” says Selldorf, and the line of stone columns, described by Venturi Scott Brown as “stand-ins for people on an empty day”, simply got in the way. Her controversial decision to remove them was partly vindicated during construction, when a mysterious letter from the late Lord Sainsbury was apparently discovered in one of the hollow pillars. “I believe that the false columns are a mistake of the architect,” he wrote, “and that we would live to regret our accepting this detail of his design. Let it be known that one of the donors of this building is absolutely delighted that your generation has decided to dispense with the unnecessary columns.”
The missive speaks volumes about the difference between the architects. Selldorf is a pragmatist. She sees architecture as a service, and she listens to her clients, which is why she has become a favourite of museum directors around the world. Venturi Scott Brown were fractious visionaries. They had blazing rows with the gallery throughout. Unwilling to compromise, Venturi even refused to attend the opening. “It was sometimes like dealing with very intelligent children,” recalled an adviser to the project.
Whether it was the right choice to hire a flexible pragmatist to mend the work of stubborn idealists remains moot. The National Gallery has soothed its practical headaches and exorcised its demons, but it has tamed some of the building’s spiky complexities and contradictions in the process. Another architect, more sympathetic to the postmodern mindset, might have made a more natural fit. But the visitor experience is smoother than before, and the work allows the Sainsbury Wing’s strengths to shine afresh. For that we should be grateful.