ABSTRACT
The controversial history of this project, which began as a commercially funded extension to William Wilkins’ building of 1832, began when the competition winners, Ahrends Burton Koralek ( ABK), had their scheme denounced by Prince Charles as ‘a carbuncle on the face of an old friend’ – a somewhat saccharine comment about a rather weak neo-classical building that forms the northern edge of Trafalgar Square and sits as the termination of an axis up Whitehall. Another competition was held (limited, this time, to keep out the riff-raff) and the eventual winner was Venturi, Rauch, Scott-Brown Architects, from the USA (now VSBA). The outcome was a controversial scheme, but one that is rich in intellectual gusto. No doubt you’ll either engage and possibly respect that, or — like most of the English architectural profession — turn away in horror from the whole enterprise. (To gauge the tenor of the times look at the opposite, south east corner of Trafalgar Square, where there sits a multi-storey offi ce building ostensibly at least 100 years old; it was constructed at the same time as the Sainsbury Wing, replacing an original building that looked exactly like this.)
The VSBA scheme almost literally hangs on a long transverse axis that passes through the main galleries of the Wilkins building, projected out into the new Sainsbury Wing building and terminated within (not by) a perspectival painting set within an arched frame (Cima’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas). The architects then bring the painting’s architectural content out into their own architecture, so that the two blend together in a forced perspectival play with a series of arched openings. This one gesture alone justifi es a visit to the building and constitutes a powerful fl ourish of gamesmanship.
