On Site - Jamie Fobert Architects

The National Portait Gallery reopened its doors on 22 June, following the most extensive transformation of its building since 1896.

Led by Jamie Fobert Architects, alongside heritage architects Purcell and a highly skilled design team, there has been a complete refurbishment and reconsideration of the building. The architectural interventions can be understood as a number of parallel projects, from a new public forecourt, which leads to a generous entry hall, to the creation of a dynamic new learning centre. The project has opened up windows, doors and areas that have been hidden for decades. By creating a new accessible entrance into the historic façade, the building has been reorientated to face the city, presenting a generous welcome and connecting the Gallery with the vibrant area of London on its doorstep.

You can book your tickets here.

Photographs © Olivier Hess (1 and 2) and © Jim Stephenson (3,4 and 5)

The Telegraph’s chief art critic Alastair Sooke has had exclusive access to the National Portrait Gallery throughout its three-year-long transformation.

In this film, Alastair visits the site while construction is in progress and speaks with Jamie and the Gallery’s Director, Nicholas Cullinan, about how the project makes the most of every part of this handsome historic building, making it beautiful and welcoming and very much part of the city.

The AR Museums Issue arrives just in time to share a wonderful peek at the National Portrait Gallery as it prepares to reopen on 22 June after the biggest redevelopment in its 127-year history.

With the final touches to the building still being made, writer Ellie Duffy took a walk around with Jamie: “Part placemaking, part architecture, in the architects’ hands ‘obvious’ becomes effortless … ensuring that what could have been mere gesture in fact reverberates deeply throughout every corner of the gallery.”

Read the piece in full here.

We are very excited that the National Portrait Gallery has today announced that it will be opening its doors for the first time since 2020 on 22 June 2023.

Visitors to the new NPG this summer will experience a complete redisplay of the Collection, a transformational refurbishment of the building, as well as an enhanced welcome and greater access through the new entrance. There will also be a new Learning Centre for visitors of all ages with studios, breakout spaces, and high-quality practical facilities.

We are leading the design team for this major project in collaboration with Purcell, Max Fordham and Price & Myers, and contractors Gilbert Ash are working hard on site to deliver a beautiful new building and forecourt.

If you would like to be the first to hear about the NPG’s 2023/24 exhibition programme, you can sign up to the Gallery’s enewsletter, here.

Photograph © David Parry

Skilled stone contractors Tudor Stonework have shared a little film that tells the story of how JFA’s designs were executed to create a new floor for the Burlington Arcade.

Completed in 2015, almost 200 years after the arcade was originally built, the geometry, tonal variation and craftsmanship of the floor respond sympathetically to the existing Regency architecture.

Tudor Stonework’s craftsmanship was superb.

Part of our redevelopment at the National Portrait Gallery includes a new Learning Centre for visitors of all ages, with studios, breakout spaces, and high-quality practical facilities.

Film courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

Here, Jamie talks with the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr. Nicholas Cullinan, about some original architectural details of the Gallery that have been uncovered during construction.

Film courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

In conversation with the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr. Nicholas Cullinan, Jamie describes the welcoming and accessible new entrance and forecourt which are currently in construction.

Film courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

Last weekend the JFA team travelled to São Lourenço do Barrocal, a family run estate in the heart of Portugal’s Alentejo region, to visit the site of our new residential project. The house, which is currently in design, will take full advantage of the extensive views of the surrounding countryside. Cattle roam free and Neolithic dolmen dot the rustic landscape, amongst olive trees and shrubs, which the house plans to sensitively manoeuvre. After looking at the proposed drawings together, we walked the marked out site and got a real sense of this beautiful place.

The first courtyard at Les Cours de BHV in Paris is complete.

In 2014 we began studying how timber paving could be introduced into our project to bring disused courtyards back into the public life of Paris. We considered various shapes and sizes of wood blocks and were drawn to the hexagon patterns but as the project was about a public route leading from one court to the next we began to introduce a chevron path of rectangular blocks that playfully lead you on your way.

Jamie discusses designing for Kurt Geiger ahead of their new boutique now open at Selfridges.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjNXkOhlpxw/?taken-by=kurtgeiger

Our redesigned Gallery 2 in Selfridges Women’s Shoes opened this weekend.

Fragmented and interlocking shapes in grey and white were designed for 100% recycled mid-floor display tables and perimeter shelves, with seating in a darker grey.

The flooring is French Oak, laid in a gentle bespoke pattern within the retail display areas and in a distinctive herringbone pattern to mark out the walkways.

Our new sneaker walls were unveiled in the Selfridges Shoe Galleries yesterday. They offer a striking display for the department store’s extensive selection of womens sneakers.

Vertical bands of stainless steel have been folded to form a individual display shelves. The vapour-blasted finish on multiple facets creates soft reflections.

Currently on site, our House in Primrose Hill involves the remodelling of an 1840s villa into a comfortably, contemporary family home. Constructed using handmade bricks, the new building elements will make an elegant addition to the streetscape, which sits within the Primrose Hill Conservation Area.

With less than a month until the re-opening, the Kettle’s Yard team is busy preparing the new galleries for the inaugural exhibition, ‘Actions: the image of the world can be different’.

We have reconfigured and extended the existing building to comprise a new entrance and welcome area, two new galleries, a new education wing which includes two learning spaces, a cafe and a shop. The spaces and facilities of Kettles Yard have been vastly improved and yet the particular character of the place, created by curator and collector Jim Ede, is retained.

Our excitement for the re-opening of this much-loved Cambridge gallery is shared by The Art Newspaper, Frieze Magazine Archiboo, and The Times, all of whom have included the event in their previews for 2018.

Aerial photographs taken using a drone this week show us Tate St Ives’s new building in plan, reminding us of our own construction drawings. The drone is controlled by the site’s resident crane driver.

Here you can see the paving of the rooftop pathway in progress. At the same time, preparation is being made for the planting of Cornish wildflowers. Weaving between the elevated volumes of the light chambers, the new public route meets an existing path which leads to the sea.

This week, Jamie has been in Trinidad to visit our newly completed House in Port-of-Spain.

Click at the top of the image to take a tour from the dining terrace and across the living room terrace to the north garden.

The house is built in travertine and the beautiful gardens and lagoon-like swimming pool are by Todd Longstaffe Gowan.

There’s some beautiful joinery made by Coulson being installed at Kettle’s Yard.

Here’s the beginning of a double handrail in Douglas fir. It will lead down to the basement education room, with one rail at a normal height and one a little lower, just right for the visiting children.

Charleston is currently a hive of activity with their annual literary event, the Charleston Festival, in full swing and with the ongoing installation of our hand-crafted wooden building frame.

Former Trustee Charles Saumarez Smith has on his blog described his delight at seeing the progress of the works.

BAM Construction and Absolute Glazing have been installing the roof light glass at Tate St Ives.

The six large light chambers on the roof capture St Ives’ particular light for the new gallery below.