Royal approval for Special Projects team

Their Majesties The King and Queen officially re-opened the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing on Tuesday 6th May following an extensive, two-year remodelling and refurbishment project by our Special Projects team

Members of our team were present as King Charles III, the Royal Patron of the National Gallery, and Queen Camilla were given a tour of the new areas ahead of the official public re-opening on Saturday 10th May.

The NG200 project was undertaken as part of the Gallery's 200th birthday celebrations and included sensitive interventions to the Wing's external façade, foyer and mezzanine to provide visitors with an improved and more welcoming first impression.  The Wing was originally built by us in the 1980s.

Works undertaken by our team have also included construction of the 1^st phase of the eventual new underground link to the Wilkins Building from the Sainsbury Wing. Provided as part of this phase are the new cloakroom, w.c. and baby change facilities. Other elements include the opening up of the Sainsbury Wing to reimagine the visitor welcome experience, the transformation  of the institution’s Learning Centre to allow the Gallery to expand their renown educational offering, and the creation of a new members’ area in the ground floor of the Wilkins Building.

By working in lockstep with the National Gallery team and other works contractors, we were able to successfully deliver an extensive programme of works against a tight timescale to achieve re-opening in line with the end of the Gallery’s bicentenary. Working to an immovable deadline, precision planning and programming, and exemplary collaboration were critical.

As the Gallery remained open to the public throughout, we supported the client to ensure their day-to-day operations were unaffected. This included extensive work in plantrooms while services critical to preserving and conserving priceless artwork remained live, and involved us excavating next-to and underpinning the foundations of the internationally recognisable backdrop to Trafalgar Square.

A combined commitment to sustainability resulted in the project’s embodied carbon being reduced by 27% through the re-use of existing materials, and more than nine tonnes of carbon emissions diverted from landfill by finding new homes for salvaged items.

Mike Coleman, Special Projects Operations Director, said: “Achieving such time critical completion of a project as complex and important as this is testament to the skill and engineering excellence of our Special Projects team and its supply chain. Working on Grade I and Grade II listed buildings presents unique and interesting challenges, and that is before you consider the sensitivities of its ‘business as usual’ profile.  From the Gallery’s international reputation, through the irreplaceable profile of its contents and the continuation of its mission "to bring people and paintings together" the construction project had to be an empathetic partner.