Practice to work through to RIBA stage 7 under six-year contract
Gustafson Porter + Bowman has been appointed as landscape architect on the National Gallery’s plans for a £375m new wing.
The practice will work from RIBA stages 1 to 7 on the public realm around the new wing, which has been designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates with BDP and MICA.
The firm beat three rival bidders to win the £990,000 job, which is expected to last nearly six years.
Meanwhile, Arup has been appointed fire engineer on the scheme on a contract worth just under £270,000.
The National Gallery’s new wing is set to be the biggest expansion in the institution’s 200-year history and part of a strategy to expand the gallery’s collection into the modern era for the first time.
Public realm upgrades around the site will also aim to improve connections between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square, two of central London’s busiest tourist spots.
The Kengo Kuma team was awarded the lead architect role in April, beating a star-studded 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.
Other projects currently being carried out by the Gustafson Porter + Bowman include the ongoing transformation of parkland around the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Hopkins Architects’ restoration of Highgate Cemetery in north London.
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