Royal Academy unveils £50m project to link two Mayfair sites

The Royal Academy has unveiled a £50m development of its historic London buildings under plans that will enlarge its public space with new exhibition galleries and a lecture theatre.

The two halves of the Mayfair site will be bridged for the first time under the plans: Burlington House, originally built as a private home on Piccadilly, will be connected by a public walkway to Burlington Gardens, a former University of London building opened by Queen Victoria in 1870 and taken over by the academy in 2001.

Galleries will be added to expand the space to display the 46,000 works in the academy's collection, most of which are held in storage, as well as spaces dedicated to the works of Royal Academicians - a group of 80 practising artists who work in the UK - and contemporary art.

The plans also include a 260-seat lecture theatre, and a threefold expansion of teaching areas, with space dedicated to displaying students' work.

Charles Saumarez-Smith, the academy's chief executive, said the scheme, which has been in the pipeline since 2008, will allow it "to show the collection more fully, more comprehensively and to much greater public benefit".

Conceived by Sir David Chipperfield, an architect and academician, the development is due to be completed by 2018 - in time for the RA's 250th anniversary.

Founded by King George III, with the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds as its first president, the academy has attracted some of the biggest names in art and architecture including William Turner, Thomas Gainsborough, David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Zaha Hadid and Antony Gormley.

By creating another main entrance in Burlington Gardens on the north side of the two-acre site, the academy also has in mind the opening of Crossrail in 2018 - it has been estimated that the east-west rail link will bring an extra 67m people a year into nearby Bond Street Station by 2026.

The academy receives no government revenue funding but a contribution of £12.7m from the Heritage Lottery Fund was "critical" to launching the project, Mr Saumarez-Smith said.

"The reality is that has unlocked, as it's supposed to, private funding," he said.

Private support has come from charitable foundations and art philanthropists including £6m from the Monument Trust, and funding from Ronald and Rita McAuley, the Maurice Wohl Foundation and the Close Duffield Foundation.

The hedge funds and private equity groups that populate Mayfair have not yet made any contributions but Mr Saumarez-Smith added that the project had another £5m to raise.

Sir David said the "bricks and mortar" part of the design was relatively simple compared to decisions over how the new space would be used.

"All museums are a complex series of tribes of people all with their own interpretation and concerns. Everyone has a slightly different idea of what the Royal Academy is."

But he said the redesign would expose activities central to the academy that had formerly been hidden in its lower levels, such as the RA Schools.

"You will be able to go from an exhibition in Burlington House to a lecture in Burlington Gardens through the vaults of the building.

"You will see the cast corridors, you will see where the schools have been all this time. It's a small amount of architecture for a profound result."

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