Sep 29 2006
The National Gallery’s East Wing + Central Portico by architects Dixon Jones with Purcell Miller Tritton has won this year’s The Crown Estate Conservation Award. The prize is awarded to the best work of conservation which demonstrates successful restoration or adaptation of an architecturally significant building.
This project forms the first two of three phases deriving from a hundred-year health check on the National Gallery. The bold stroke of removing large piers and inserting trusses has transformed the entrance foyer into a series of linked spaces.
The modifications now provide direct access to and from Trafalgar Square and have created breathing space for the gallery’s five and a half million annual visitors. This thoughtful and intelligent intervention is ingenious in the way that the changes have been inserted without harming, indeed they have enhanced, this important, historic interior. The new interiors are an understated, modernist fusion of the old with the new.
The Crown Estate Conservation Award judges – conservation architect Richard Griffiths; David Pickles, English Heritage; Roger Bright, Chief Executive of The Crown Estate and Tony Chapman, RIBA Head of Awards said:
“Creative conservation is not just about caring for the fabric of historic buildings; it is also about adapting them to accommodate new needs, with old and new co-existing to their mutual advantage. This complicated project, which both reveals the splendour of the historical main entrance sequence, and provides for the needs of today’s visitors, shows how this can be achieved in an exemplary manner.”
“Managing change to a Grade 1 listed building of national importance brings serious challenges if significance is not to be compromised or eroded. This project has recognised with great skill and rigour the opportunities to reveal and reinforce the values that make this building so special whilst providing a greatly improved visitor experience.”
Roger Bright, Chief Executive of The Crown Estate said today:
“The Crown Estate attaches the greatest possible importance to this award. It is particularly gratifying to see two distinguished practices working together to produce an exciting and imaginative upgrade to a Grade I listed building to bring it in line with the requirements of the 21st century. It is an extremely worthy winner.”
The project saw off strong competition from four other buildings on the shortlist:
- Christ Church Spitalfields, London E1 by Purcell Miller Tritton in association with William Whitfield and Partners
- Pinions Barn, Buckinghamshire, by Simon Conder Associates
- Harbour Meadow, West Sussex by Avanti Architects
- The Egg, Bath by Haworth Tompkins
The winner will be presented with their award at a special ceremony at the RIBA Stirling Prize in association with The Architects’ Journal, on Saturday 14 October at the Roundhouse, London.