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National Portrait Gallery

by Jamie Fobert Architects and Purcell

Client National Portrait Gallery

Award RIBA London Award 2024 and RIBA National Award 2024 and shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2024

National Portrait Gallery © olivierhess.com

London’s National Portrait Gallery, situated off Trafalgar Square, has undergone a significant transformation aimed at enhancing the visitor experience and revitalising its historic spaces.

Jamie Fobert Architects’ key interventions include a new public entrance and forecourt, a learning centre, and repurposing existing office spaces into public space. Refurbished historical elements of the Grade I listed building are seamlessly blended with contemporary design. Providing a more welcoming and accessible space for visitors, the new entrance also symbolically reorientates the Gallery towards the vibrant neighbourhood to the north, which the previous entrance turned its back against. It involved the careful alteration of original windows to form new doorways, retaining cut marks at the doorway bases to express the alterations.

The new learning centre is located underneath the bridge that links the forecourt to this entrance across a basement void, allowing it to benefit from natural light and an enclosed courtyard.

Watch a video of the National Portrait Gallery project below

 

Read the full citation from the RIBA Awards Jury on RIBA Journal

Contractor Gilbert Ash

Environmental / M&E Engineer Max Fordham LLP

Structural Engineer Price & Myers

Wayfinding and Donor Recognition Holmes Wood

Interpretation Designer Nissen Richards Studio

Retail Designer Alex Cochrane Architects

Project Management Gardiner & Theobald

Quantity Surveyor / Cost Consultant Turner & Townsend

Access Consultant David Bonnett Associates

Fire Consultant OFR

Planning Consultant Lichfields

Exhibition Lighting ZNA

Gross internal area in m² 10102

National Portrait Gallery © Jim Stephenson
National Portrait Gallery © Jim Stephenson
National Portrait Gallery © olivierhess.com
National Portrait Gallery © olivierhess.com
National Portrait Gallery © Jim Stephenson
National Portrait Gallery © Jim Stephenson
National Portrait Gallery © Jim Stephenson
National Portrait Gallery © National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery © Jamie Fobert Architects and Purcell
National Portrait Gallery © Jamie Fobert Architects and Purcell
National Portrait Gallery © Jamie Fobert Architects and Purcell
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