The Wall Street Journal

London’s National Gallery Gets an Upgrade

Annabelle Selldorf’s renovations of the Sainsbury Wing allow it to comfortably accommodate more visitors while better integrating it with the rest of the museum, whose superb collection has been thoughtfully rehung.

View of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing and Wilkins Building from Trafalgar Square.
View of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing and Wilkins Building from Trafalgar Square. Photo: National Gallery, London/Edmund Sumner

London

Art needs architecture, and masterpieces need museums. Since the National Gallery’s Wilkins Building, named after its architect, William Wilkins, opened in 1838, its Georgian frontage has dominated Trafalgar Square. In 1991 the museum added the Sainsbury Wing, a postmodern design by Americans Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown on an irregularly shaped site on the square’s northwestern corner.

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