The Courtauld has unveiled an £82million campus redevelopment it is calling a “once-in-a-generation transformation” of its Grade-I listed building at Somerset House in London.
Stirling Prize-winning architects Witherford Watson Mann will take charge of the project on the teaching and research center and public gallery, which will follow the 2021 revamp of the Courtauld Gallery space, and is expected to take four years to complete. The Courtauld Institute of Art is an independent college of the University of London, founded in the 1930s, which focuses on the teaching and research of art history.
Professor Mark Hallett, Mariette Rausing Director of the Courtauld, said: “Our gallery is The most beautiful and elegant gallery in the UK and this next phase is all about bringing everything back under one roof as well as building an amazing new campus for the educational institution… It’s going to be something that really suits today’s students.,
The renovation work will take place in the east wing of Somerset House, with the institute connected to a number of townhouses on the Strand.
The work means the Courtauld’s teaching space, currently located in King’s Cross in north London, will sit in the same location as its gallery, creating what the institute is calling “a flexible, cutting-edge campus and (protecting) its legacy for the next 100 years”.
As well as the announcement, new research was commissioned by the institution which shows that the number of UK schools offering Art History A-levels has fallen by 37% over the past decade, from 122 in 2016 to 77. All of these are in England, with most of them in London and the south-east. Only 19 out of 77 are government schools.
Hallett said the research was “a platform to move forward”, with the institute planning to assist schools that want to teach art history, although the project is in the early planning stages and no details are ready to be announced.
The late art historian and former Courtauld director Michael Kauffman moved the institution from “the exquisite goldfish bowl in Portman Square” to Somerset House in the late 1980s. It also houses a gallery with a collection that includes many masterpieces, such as Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, Botticelli’s The Trinity with Saints and Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.
The change was successful, with the number of students nearly doubling by the time of Kauffman’s departure six years later. Alumni include the current British Museum Director, Nicholas Cullinan, Chairman of Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota, and National Gallery Head, Gabriel Findley.
Hallett said the renovation was the completion of Kaufman’s original vision.
He said: “It’s an iteration of what Michael wanted to see when he took the Courtauld to Somerset House, but making sure we’re operating at a really high standard in terms of the environment we provide.”,
The institution’s gallery reopened in 2021 following a three-year, £57m renovation project that was widely praised, with the Observer calling it “a masterclass in tasteful updating”.
Redesign architect Witherford Watson Mann recently won the Stirling Prize for his Appleby Blue Almshouses housing complex in Southwark, London.
The substantial overhaul of the Courtauld’s teaching spaces is being paid for by donations, including a record £30m from the Ruben Foundation and the Blavatnik Family Foundation, which gave £10m to the gallery in 2020.
Other donors include the Deborah Loeb Bryce Foundation, the Clore Duffield Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Oak Foundation, the Julia Rausing Trust, the Rothschild Foundation, Georgia and David Winter, and the Wolfson Foundation.
The project is expected to be completed in 2029.
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