If the director is serious about ‘healing the nation’ he needs to address that with a more diverse procurement process, writes Elizabeth Hopkirk
The National Gallery’s announcement of an open competition for an architect-led team to design a £30m project is a rare burst of sunshine in this long winter of covid. The chance to get your hands on two of the country’s most important buildings is a mouthwatering opportunity.
When thenews brokeafter a midnight embargo there were excited emails between engineers and architects saying, “Have you seen this?” You can almost hear the sharpening of pencils, although organiser Malcolm Reading tells us no design work is required. There won’t be too many architectural competitions of this size from cultural institutions in the foreseeable future.
The brief is – what else? – to “improve the visitor experience”, including remodelling Venturi Scott Brown’s Sainsbury Wing entrance and the way the western extension links with the main building along Trafalgar Square. The gallery also wants to create a research centre and perhaps sort out the circulation problems endured by the worst-connected back rooms, all to mark its bicentenary in 2024.
在2019冠状病毒病对艺术造成灾难性影响后，导演加布里埃莱·芬纳尔迪最雄心勃勃地希望这个项目成为“我们国家治愈的一部分”。
Talking of healing, the Sainsbury Wing only exists because of a particularly notorious skirmish in the style wars. Prince Charles’ 1984 speech to the RIBA likening Ahrends Burton Koralek’s competition-winning extension to “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend” sparked a public furore. The project was refused planning and, only after the Sainsbury brothers stumped up a lot of cash, a new competition was launched with the results we can see today.
Perhaps Charles did not know that his forebear William IV – apparently in his last recorded words – derided the elegant friend as a “nasty little pokey hole”. The monarch was not the only detractor of William Wilkins’ winning entry in the 19th——一个国家美术馆的世纪竞赛。萨克雷称它是一座“小杜松子酒铺”的建筑，不足以成为特拉法加广场景观的焦点。最近，建筑历史学家约翰·萨默森(John Summerson)嘲笑它的屋顶轮廓像“壁炉上的钟表和花瓶，只是用处不大”。
Where is the clause requiring entrants to include young and diverse firms on their teams?
Wilkins’ design was hamstrung by a site as tight as its budget – only one room deep thanks to a workhouse and barracks behind. These were eventually demolished and the building has been added to over the centuries more or less successfully. Among the most recent interventions, Jeremy Dixon and Ed Jones proposed street-level entrances either side of the portico. Only one was built, and their idea of a grand staircase cascading down to the newly pedestrianised north terrace of Trafalgar Square also never saw the light of day. Notwithstanding Venturi Scott Brown’s beautifully detailed wing (listedat grade I in 2018), the National Gallery has always suffered from its hopeless lack of a proper entrance. If this is truly a chance to resolve that, it is to be welcomed.
Several commentators have rightly questioned the morality of spending £30m on a new door for an art gallery in London when cultural organisations up and down the country are going to the wall, but it’s not as binary as that. It is not as though the National Gallery has £30m sitting in the bank which it could give away. It will have to convince potential donors that its plans are worth supporting. It has some major advantages, of course, in reaching out to government, the lottery, philanthropists and punters, but to some extent it will be fishing in a different pool from your local arts centre.
To prove itself worthy of our cash, the National Gallery must go a lot further than the worthy but predictable promises made in yesterday’s announcement: a national outreach programme to accompany the build and a requirement that foreign teams have a UK partner.
这是我们的国家美术馆，宣布了英国自脱离欧洲以来的第一个大型文化项目。这是一个机会，表明英国打算以一种大胆的新方式，在我们拥有主权的阳光明媚的高地进行采购。我们看重的是创造力和升级，而不是麻痹谨慎和打勾。
Instead it seems to be business as usual. In some respects it is not a bad contest with £10,000 for each shortlisted team, for instance, and a bespoke contract. But to qualify, the lead architect must have done at least two civic or cultural projects of “national, if not international, distinction” in the last five years and every member of the team must have £10m of PI cover.
对于如此重要的项目来说，这些要求并不是不合理的，但要求参赛者在团队中包含年轻且多样化的公司的条款在哪里呢?这很容易做到，只需设定最高营业额门槛(比如100万英镑)，并免除PI费用。更好的做法是，用一些真正富有想象力的方法，帮助那些由代表性不足的社会和族裔群体领导的小型实践机构，从中分一杯羹。恩菲尔德市议会正试图在其60亿英镑的子午线水再生项目中做到这一点。
>> From the archive:In defence of the Sainsbury Wing by Denise Scott Brown
采购活动家和建筑师拉塞尔·柯蒂斯(Russell Curtis)曾为伦敦金融城的芬斯伯里马戏团比赛(Finsbury Circus competition)提供建议，该比赛有最高营业额规定。他这样评价国家美术馆:“他们的要求非常高。大堂内部，景观美化，前门——任何一个这些包都将是一个伟大的机会，与一个大型的，有经验的建筑师一起工作，将使一个更引人注目的项目。”
If the National Gallery is not prepared to bet the whole £30m on an untested practice – and there is plenty of evidence that doing just that can lead to the best results [insert obligatory Pompidou Centre reference here] – it should feel a responsibility to share out some of the riches through enlightened procurement that would set a great example.
这是一个国家文化组织通过艺术帮助治愈这个国家的方式，而不仅仅是项目本身。
6Readers' comments