National Portrait Gallery up for RIBA Stirling Prize
14th October, 2024

The National Portrait Gallery, Westminster, by Jamie Fobert Architects with Purcell is shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2024

The National Portrait Gallery’s Inspiring People Project is the largest ever refurbishment of the gallery, and the first for 20 years. A highlight is the new feature forecourt and entrance, with other alterations including the conversion of the East Wing from office space back into galleries, and an expanded basement Learning Centre.

Will the National Portrait Gallery win this year?  We certainly hope so!

Since working on the 2013 winning Astley Castle with Witherford Watson Mann – a careful meshing of new and old architecture - we have found ourselves on many architect teams shortlisted for the Stirling Prize over the last ten years: A fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed in the wider industry, as ING Media explored and Richard Waite reported in an AJ article last year:  https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/who-do-you-need-on-your-team-for-stirling-prize-success

These projects range from community and housing work, to education buildings, private homes, and cultural and religious building - a real medley of work.

In discussing this year’s shortlisting for NPG in The Guardian, architecture critic Oliver Wainwright acknowledges the skill of a project where ‘the real ingenuity is mostly hidden. A delicate process of keyhole surgery, making strategic cuts and connections, saw 20% more space conjured from the existing warren of rooms. Formerly blocked windows were opened up, letting light flood in, classrooms were carved out below ground, spilling on to a new sunken terrace, and a new entrance was boldly sliced through the listed stone facade. A sloping public forecourt elegantly deals with access, doing away with the previous “accessible” entrance down a side alley, and putting all visitors on the same level. The project has utterly transformed the place, in ways that are sometimes imperceptible.’

Discreet, careful, thoughtful, and full of problems solved – that is what makes the work for The National Portrait Gallery, and many of our other projects, so special for us.

Stirling Prize shortlisted projects Price & Myers have worked on:

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