The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) celebrates its 250th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion it has unveiled its long-awaited £56m redevelopment. Opening up a host of new galleries and learning spaces across the site, the revamp aims to position the RA firmly as the place to make, exhibit and debate art.
From its annual Summer Exhibition (on until 19 August) through its rotating cast of stellar shows – Hockney, Ai Weiwei, From Russia, Bronze, Anish Kapoor, Byzantium, Van Gogh and His Letters, Anselm Kiefer – the RA’s temporary exhibition programme is world renowned. But that success created a problem: visitors, if they are anything like me, would look at the art on show but rarely take away anything about the wider institution. This problem must have been at the forefront of plans to reimagine the academy.
Designed by the British architect David Chipperfield and supported by the National Lottery, the redeveloped RA boasts 70% more public space, including the new Weston Bridge, which creates a link between the Burlington House and Burlington Gardens buildings for the first time. This has unified the whole site, meaning no more lengthy diversions via Burlington Arcade.
New spaces
Visitors arriving at the Burlington House entrance off Piccadilly can now venture behind the main staircase into the heart of the building and descend to its basement. Here, there are two new public galleries that take you on a journey through the RA’s main building to Burlington Gardens. Out of all the new spaces in the RA, these may well be the two most important. The first of them, the Vaults, introduces visitors to the history of the academy. Its inaugural display, The Making of an Artist: Learning to Draw, displays the various casts, models and life drawings from the collections used as teaching devices at the RA in the 18th and 19th centuries. The vaulted ceiling and alcoves with their bare grey-brick walls complement the stripped-back narrative and the even more stripped-back anatomical displays.
The second gallery, the Weston Studio, is dedicated to the work of students and alumni of the RA Schools. It is the UK’s longest established school of art and offers free tuition to a select number of artists that are accepted onto the three-year course. Until now, the school has been kept well hidden from the public – so well that it was news to me.
The current display in the Weston Studio is titled Honeymoon and consists of works by first-year students contrasted with that from their alumni peers upstairs. Equally enticing are the views down the corridors (not accessible to the public) of the students’ studios and workshop – the literal and metaphorical foundations of the academy. Both these new spaces are small and narrow though, and will no doubt be difficult to navigate on busy days – an inevitable compromise when working with listed buildings. But what they do remarkably well is connect visitors to the past, present and future of the RA. They reveal a part of the institution that has previously been hidden and inaccessible.
Sense of adventure
Leaving these galleries behind, visitors cross the Western Bridge to enter Burlington Gardens. The bridge offers a surprising view out to green gardens between the two buildings. The flood of natural light is an approach continued throughout Burlington Gardens – built in 1870 as part of the University of London – helping to create a sense of lightness and freshness I have rarely felt in other art galleries.
It is in Burlington Gardens that the majority of the redevelopment work has taken place: three renovated gallery spaces, a lecture theatre, an architecture studio, cafes, learning spaces and new reception area have increased the public footprint by more than 8,000 sq metres.
This increase in capacity allows the RA to tell stories of its history and collections, and to experiment with new ideas – such as Grayson Perry’s Room of Fun featuring humorous art and portraits of him, a complementary installation to the Summer Exhibition, which the artist is coordinating this year.
The last time I visited Burlington Gardens was in 2010 for a contemporary art exhibition, Earth: Art of a Changing World. It was a warren of dimly lit rooms, cut off from the rest of the RA; today, light floods into the sympathetically restored building. Surprises are to be found around every corner: the giant painting, Satan Summoning His Legions (1796-97) by Thomas Lawrence, greets you in the Collection Gallery, then visitors find themselves in a bedroom with an en suite balcony bathroom. The latter is part of the architecture practice Maio’s installation – Invisible Landscapes: Home (Act 1) – in the new Architecture Studio. Being suddenly in a bedroom is somewhat disorientating.
Taking risks
Large-scale capital projects with ambitious timeframes mean that it is always likely that some aspects will not be quite ready. I explored the new RA spaces a few days ahead of the public opening, and it was all hands on deck as staff completed the installation of the new cafe and put the finishing touches on the doorways and flooring.
The interpretation was in a similar state too. While the material of the graphic panels are a little warped around the edges, the information they contain is brave and goes a lot further than other art galleries to explain detailed historical context.
On busier days these free galleries will feel full quickly, but that is a nice problem to have and one that is faced by most museums and galleries occupying listed buildings. It will be interesting to see if these spaces draw visitors in. It’s a tough ask when the main draw is always likely to be the big names in the temporary exhibitions, but the opportunities to expand the events programme, later openings and learning workshops will mean there is plenty to keep curious minds occupied.
What the RA has achieved with this redevelopment is a series of spaces that will help better communicate who and what it is. It is refreshing for such a large institution to open up a suite of free public galleries that provide the potential to take more risks and engage people beyond the blockbuster shows upstairs.
Alex Fairhead is a senior consultant at Barker Langham cultural consultancy
Over the years the building had been subject to a series of modifications. A central challenge was therefore to find an approach to the various layers of building fabric and return some of its original character. However, there was a more fundamental organisational question: how should it be used? The new spaces needed to be integrated with the RA socially and physically. Crucially, a large part of our work involved mediating the concerns of various departments and groups.
In the end, the architectural project largely consisted of restoration and a series of small interventions to accommodate new facilities and connections. The most notable new architectural form is a bridge linking the back-to-back buildings, and creating a new route that runs continuously from one entrance to the other, revealing previously unseen areas, such as the RA Schools, along the way. The bridge also reconciles the change in axis and floor level between the two historic buildings.
Another notable new architectural element, crucial to the reworked programme, is the reinstatement of a lecture theatre in the same location as Pennethorne’s original design. This involved removing a floor – a later addition – to create an open, double-height space for the classically-inspired stepped semi-circular arrangement.
By David Chipperfield Architects
Main funders National Lottery; Royal Academy Development Trust; Burlington Appeal Board; Blavatnik Family Foundation; The Cadogan Charity; Clore Duffield Foundation; Dorfman Foundation; Dunard Fund; Foyle Foundation; Garfield Weston Foundation; Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation; Monument Trust; Rothschild Foundation; Wolfson Foundation
Architect David Chipperfield Architects
Conservation architect Julian Harrap Architects
Contractor John Sisk & Son
Building service engineer Arup
Structural engineer Alan Baxter
Display design Studio Adrien Gardère
Display graphics LucienneRoberts+
Display installation Momart
Gallery fitout MER Services
Large paintings conservation Bush & Berry Conservation Studio
Sculpture conservation Taylor Pearce Restoration Services
Display cases Goppion
Landscaping Wirtz International Landscape Architects
Theatre design and acoustic consultant Sound Space Vision
From its annual Summer Exhibition (on until 19 August) through its rotating cast of stellar shows – Hockney, Ai Weiwei, From Russia, Bronze, Anish Kapoor, Byzantium, Van Gogh and His Letters, Anselm Kiefer – the RA’s temporary exhibition programme is world renowned. But that success created a problem: visitors, if they are anything like me, would look at the art on show but rarely take away anything about the wider institution. This problem must have been at the forefront of plans to reimagine the academy.
Designed by the British architect David Chipperfield and supported by the National Lottery, the redeveloped RA boasts 70% more public space, including the new Weston Bridge, which creates a link between the Burlington House and Burlington Gardens buildings for the first time. This has unified the whole site, meaning no more lengthy diversions via Burlington Arcade.
New spaces
Visitors arriving at the Burlington House entrance off Piccadilly can now venture behind the main staircase into the heart of the building and descend to its basement. Here, there are two new public galleries that take you on a journey through the RA’s main building to Burlington Gardens. Out of all the new spaces in the RA, these may well be the two most important. The first of them, the Vaults, introduces visitors to the history of the academy. Its inaugural display, The Making of an Artist: Learning to Draw, displays the various casts, models and life drawings from the collections used as teaching devices at the RA in the 18th and 19th centuries. The vaulted ceiling and alcoves with their bare grey-brick walls complement the stripped-back narrative and the even more stripped-back anatomical displays.
The second gallery, the Weston Studio, is dedicated to the work of students and alumni of the RA Schools. It is the UK’s longest established school of art and offers free tuition to a select number of artists that are accepted onto the three-year course. Until now, the school has been kept well hidden from the public – so well that it was news to me.
The current display in the Weston Studio is titled Honeymoon and consists of works by first-year students contrasted with that from their alumni peers upstairs. Equally enticing are the views down the corridors (not accessible to the public) of the students’ studios and workshop – the literal and metaphorical foundations of the academy. Both these new spaces are small and narrow though, and will no doubt be difficult to navigate on busy days – an inevitable compromise when working with listed buildings. But what they do remarkably well is connect visitors to the past, present and future of the RA. They reveal a part of the institution that has previously been hidden and inaccessible.
Sense of adventure
Leaving these galleries behind, visitors cross the Western Bridge to enter Burlington Gardens. The bridge offers a surprising view out to green gardens between the two buildings. The flood of natural light is an approach continued throughout Burlington Gardens – built in 1870 as part of the University of London – helping to create a sense of lightness and freshness I have rarely felt in other art galleries.
It is in Burlington Gardens that the majority of the redevelopment work has taken place: three renovated gallery spaces, a lecture theatre, an architecture studio, cafes, learning spaces and new reception area have increased the public footprint by more than 8,000 sq metres.
This increase in capacity allows the RA to tell stories of its history and collections, and to experiment with new ideas – such as Grayson Perry’s Room of Fun featuring humorous art and portraits of him, a complementary installation to the Summer Exhibition, which the artist is coordinating this year.
The last time I visited Burlington Gardens was in 2010 for a contemporary art exhibition, Earth: Art of a Changing World. It was a warren of dimly lit rooms, cut off from the rest of the RA; today, light floods into the sympathetically restored building. Surprises are to be found around every corner: the giant painting, Satan Summoning His Legions (1796-97) by Thomas Lawrence, greets you in the Collection Gallery, then visitors find themselves in a bedroom with an en suite balcony bathroom. The latter is part of the architecture practice Maio’s installation – Invisible Landscapes: Home (Act 1) – in the new Architecture Studio. Being suddenly in a bedroom is somewhat disorientating.
All the spaces, new and renovated, have a sense of brightness, adventure and intimacy – testament to the design of the refurbishments and the creative programming that aims to be more inclusive and challenging, and reimagine the RA for the public. The increase in space has also boosted the academy’s events and learning programme. New areas for debate and dialogue, including the smart lecture theatre, should help engage fresh audiences, as well as build on the already strong programme of events.
Taking risks
Large-scale capital projects with ambitious timeframes mean that it is always likely that some aspects will not be quite ready. I explored the new RA spaces a few days ahead of the public opening, and it was all hands on deck as staff completed the installation of the new cafe and put the finishing touches on the doorways and flooring.
The interpretation was in a similar state too. While the material of the graphic panels are a little warped around the edges, the information they contain is brave and goes a lot further than other art galleries to explain detailed historical context.
On busier days these free galleries will feel full quickly, but that is a nice problem to have and one that is faced by most museums and galleries occupying listed buildings. It will be interesting to see if these spaces draw visitors in. It’s a tough ask when the main draw is always likely to be the big names in the temporary exhibitions, but the opportunities to expand the events programme, later openings and learning workshops will mean there is plenty to keep curious minds occupied.
What the RA has achieved with this redevelopment is a series of spaces that will help better communicate who and what it is. It is refreshing for such a large institution to open up a suite of free public galleries that provide the potential to take more risks and engage people beyond the blockbuster shows upstairs.
Alex Fairhead is a senior consultant at Barker Langham cultural consultancy
Focus on: Architecture
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA), with its governing artist and architect academicians and its art school, is an institution full of life and history. The aim of the masterplan is to provide a framework to encourage and reveal these activities to a wider public, by linking the RA’s original building, Burlington House, to Burlington Gardens, a large late 19th-century building designed by James Pennethorne for the University of London and acquired by the RA in 2001.Over the years the building had been subject to a series of modifications. A central challenge was therefore to find an approach to the various layers of building fabric and return some of its original character. However, there was a more fundamental organisational question: how should it be used? The new spaces needed to be integrated with the RA socially and physically. Crucially, a large part of our work involved mediating the concerns of various departments and groups.
In the end, the architectural project largely consisted of restoration and a series of small interventions to accommodate new facilities and connections. The most notable new architectural form is a bridge linking the back-to-back buildings, and creating a new route that runs continuously from one entrance to the other, revealing previously unseen areas, such as the RA Schools, along the way. The bridge also reconciles the change in axis and floor level between the two historic buildings.
Another notable new architectural element, crucial to the reworked programme, is the reinstatement of a lecture theatre in the same location as Pennethorne’s original design. This involved removing a floor – a later addition – to create an open, double-height space for the classically-inspired stepped semi-circular arrangement.
By David Chipperfield Architects
Project data
Cost £56mMain funders National Lottery; Royal Academy Development Trust; Burlington Appeal Board; Blavatnik Family Foundation; The Cadogan Charity; Clore Duffield Foundation; Dorfman Foundation; Dunard Fund; Foyle Foundation; Garfield Weston Foundation; Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation; Monument Trust; Rothschild Foundation; Wolfson Foundation
Architect David Chipperfield Architects
Conservation architect Julian Harrap Architects
Contractor John Sisk & Son
Building service engineer Arup
Structural engineer Alan Baxter
Display design Studio Adrien Gardère
Display graphics LucienneRoberts+
Display installation Momart
Gallery fitout MER Services
Large paintings conservation Bush & Berry Conservation Studio
Sculpture conservation Taylor Pearce Restoration Services
Display cases Goppion
Landscaping Wirtz International Landscape Architects
Theatre design and acoustic consultant Sound Space Vision
Admission Free to collection galleries
