Sainsbury Wing

Sainsbury Wing is an extension of the National Gallery in the City of Westminster, facing Trafalgar Square. Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and their team designed it, completing the project after about six years. Its mannerist stone façade steps forward from the main alignment and follows the building line of Pall Mall. Large diagonal openings face the square and signal the level-access entrance from a distance.

Inside, the outer stone façade leads into a covered double-height loggia, while progressively lower ceilings guide you towards the entrance hall. Large stone columns frame the entrance hall beneath a coffered ceiling. A stone floor and colonnades mark the building’s axes, while darkened glazing prepares your eyes for brighter galleries. The main stair rises through one floor and then three, releasing the entrance hall’s compressed scale.

The upper galleries present early Renaissance paintings, with Italian and Dutch schools visible through aligned doorways and openings. A mezzanine restaurant looks across Trafalgar Square. The Grade I listed building uses layered façades, curved walls, patterned surfaces and wide openings to shape movement through its rooms. At the long gallery’s end, windows look over the double-height space above the restaurant towards Pall Mall.