Firms picked as civil and structural engineer and MEP engineer on Kengo Kuma-designed scheme
Buro Happold has been appointed as civil and structural engineer on the £375m project to build a new wing at the National Gallery.
The firm beat four rival bidders to win the £1.9m job, which is expected to last around five years and nine months.
Max Fordham has also picked up a £2.2m role as MEP engineering consultant on the scheme, which is set to run for the same duration. Both contracts are expected to be signed tomorrow.
The new wing will replace a 1960s hotel building immediately to the rear of the gallery’s Sainsbury Wing, and has been billed as the biggest expansion in the museum’s 200-year history.
Kengo Kuma and Associates with BDP and MICA was chosen as the scheme’s architect in April following an international competition, beating a high-profile shortlist including Foster & Partners and Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
The project, one of the most prestigious cultural commissions in recent years, has been funded by two of the largest private donations ever received by a museum or gallery anywhere in the world.
Crankstart, a charity founded by billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz and his wife Harriet Heyman, and the Julia Rausing Trust have each donated £150m towards the new wing, with the National Gallery Trust contributing a further £75m.
The new building is set to house artworks loaned from the Tate museums which date to beyond 1900, extending the National Gallery’s collection into the modern era for the first time.
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