For nearly 250 years, the RA has been a place to make, exhibit and debate art. For their anniversary in 2018 they are opening up the RA as never before, transforming their historic buildings. Burlington House on Piccadilly and Burlington Gardens, will be united through designs by architect David Chipperfield RA. The redevelopment will reveal the elements that make the RA unique, sharing with the public their historic treasures, the work of their Academicians and the RA Schools, alongside their world-class exhibitions programme.

The Royal Academy of Arts in London is set for a £50 million revamp by architect David Chipperfield that will significantly alter the face and shape of the institution.

New public areas will be created, including dedicated spaces for exhibitions and displays across the site for their historic collection, contemporary art projects and new work by Royal Academicians. A double-height lecture theatre with over 260 seats will build on the Academy’s heritage of rigorous and lively debate. New facilities will enable them to provide a better welcome for the visitors, as well as their learning programme and more spaces for the RA Schools. Explore the new spaces and facilities below – and keep an eye on this page as their plans unfold.

In a perfect rectangle, bounded by Piccadilly, the Burlington Arcade and the lodgings of Albany, with no intrusions and no awkward angles, stand the two Burlington buildings, the Royal Academy's home, Burlington House, and its partially used Burlington Gardens. The problem with both buildings has been, until now, the fact that they stand back to back, but it seems like that will be soon a forgotten issue. Since 2001, when the Royal Academy acquired the freehold, no solution has been chosen to give some unity, connection or shared purpose to these two buildings. As the Chief Executive of the RA, Charles Saumarez Smith explains:

“There’s a long history to the project. Michael and Patty Hopkins did a good scheme in 2001. It would have filled in the space between the two buildings. It was ambitious, but it would have cost £85 million and that was the moment that big National Lottery funding for such projects was stopping. Then from 2001 to 2007, Sandy Wilson was commissioned to do a masterplan. He suggested connecting the two buildings but not uniting them physically as one. Sandy died in 2007 and his proposal died with him.”

Now, 14 years later, the Royal Academy has an architect with a new vision for the place, David Chipperfield, whose proposal is a "connection 'front door to front door', straight through the Schools", plus the money to fund it, around £44 million, and the perfect date to have it finished, 2018, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the RA.

In Chipperfield's design, the outer image of both buildings will not excessively change. Burlington Gardens' facade will be cleaned and it will house a new terrace, but essentially, the façades of both buildings will be unchanged.

Other changes, but not more radical, are made in the inside: a suite of galleries dedicated to the work of living artists, including Academicians; another to show the work of the Schools; and a third for the RA’s own collections. A Clore Learning Centre and a courtyard between the two buildings for students and staff round off the scheme. However, we are not dealing with a geat intervention, nor a drastic project. It is a soft physical transfromation which origin is in the transformation of the institution itself. Saumarez Smith answers why they chose Chipperfield for the project:

“David has spent a lot of time working in American museums. He ran into the question of how to persuade visitors that art is made. People think it grows on trees, appears on museum walls and exists to be bought and sold. You must insert the idea that art is made. That is what the RA is about; David understands that perfectly.”

So the challenge is double: create a connection between two old buildings and a suitable image for an old but atcual institution.

Read more
Read less

More information

Sir David Alan Chipperfield was born in London in 1953 and was raised on a farm in Devon, in the southwest of England. He studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, graduating in 1980. He later worked with Douglas Stephen, Norman Foster, and Richard Rogers before founding his own firm, David Chipperfield Architects, in 1985.

The firm has grown to include offices in London, Berlin (1998), Shanghai (2005), Milan (2006), and Santiago de Compostela (2022). His first notable commission was a commercial interior for Issey Miyake in London, which led him to work in Japan. In the United Kingdom, his first significant building was the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, completed in 1997.

Chipperfield has developed over one hundred projects across Asia, Europe, and North America, including civic, cultural, academic, and residential buildings. In Germany, he led the reconstruction of the Neues Museum in Berlin (1993–2009) and the construction of the James-Simon-Galerie (1999–2018).

He has been a professor at various universities in Europe and the United States, including the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and Yale University. In 2012, he curated the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. In 2017, he established the RIA Foundation in Galicia, Spain, dedicated to research on sustainable development in the region.

He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and has been recognized as an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). He has received numerous awards, including the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2011, the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2013, and the Pritzker Prize in 2023. In 2009, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 2010 he was knighted for his services to architecture, and in 2021 he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in the United Kingdom.

Chipperfield's career is distinguished by his focus on the relationship between architecture and its context, as well as his commitment to sustainability and the preservation of architectural heritage.

Read more
Published on: May 12, 2015
Cite:
metalocus, LEONOR MARTÍN, ANDREA PORTILLO
"Redeveloping the Royal Academy by David Chipperfield" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/redeveloping-royal-academy-david-chipperfield> ISSN 1139-6415
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...