Monstrous carbuncles to talking columns: the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing is still a controversy magnet

The building deftly fuses the classicism of the existing gallery with modern motifs in steel and dark tinted glass – celebrating what Venturi called, in the title of his famous book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Games are played with the Corinthian pilasters of William Wilkins’ 1830s building, repeating them across the extension’s facade in staccato rhythms, then slicing great chunks out of the walls to reveal sheets of tinted glazing, reminiscent of a 1990s shopping mall, perhaps in a nod to the museum shop inside. The false columns in the foyer were part of the intended spatial sequence, conceived as a procession from shadow to light, inspired by the entry to an ancient church. Visitors would enter this crypt-like lower level, proceed up a grand staircase, and arrive in the airy galleries above. Neil MacGregor, director of the National Gallery when the Sainsbury Wing was commissioned and built, told the Art Newspaper this week: “Venturi wanted the foyer to have the feel of a mighty crypt, leading upstairs to the galleries, so it was a subsidiary space – the beginning of a journey, not a destination. John Sainsbury argued that sightlines should be as unencumbered as possible, thinking the extra columns would conceal the entrance to the lecture theatre and temporary exhibition galleries, confusing the visitor.” More than 30 years later, Sainsbury’s view is shared by the National Gallery’s current administration. Director Gabriele Finaldi has said it is the “heavy grey architecture” and “forest” of thick pillars on the ground floor that he and his architect, Annabelle Selldorf, want to change. New York-based Selldorf – widely respected for her accomplished museum projects elsewhere – says her makeover will create a “more casual seating area, where visitors can spend time and watch people come by, a free space where everyone is welcome”. But her images don’t inspire a huge amount of confidence. Her lobby may be less encumbered by columns, but it is also a more generic world: a smooth, bright, beige place, redolent of airport lounges and hotel foyers the world over. You might say that the result looks like an aggressive act of teeth-whitening in the mouth of a much-loved and elegant friend. Still, at least the man who originally paid for it all is finally happy. We can eagerly await the discovery of further posthumous missives, perhaps expressing his distaste for the oversized cornice mouldings, or his displeasure at the brash tinted windows.