Architect wanted for ‘site-wide transformation’ of London’s Wallace Collection | News

London’s Wallace Collection is seeking to appoint an architect to design a “site-wide transformation” of its grade II-listed Marylebone base.

The art gallery is planning a significant redevelopment of Hertford House, a late 18th and 19th century former mansion house on Manchester Square, just north of Oxford Street. 

Built for the Seymour family, the house and its extensive art collection, which includes Frans Hals’ The Laughing Cavalier, was bequeathed to the nation and opened to the public in 1900.

The gallery has now launched a contract notice for a £1.2m role as design lead and principal designer on a masterplan for the site, with the job expected to run for six years.

The project will focus on all areas of the building, aiming to improve the visitor experience, the display of its collection and its energy efficiency.

A design brief included in tender documents outlines the museum’s ambition to create an “exceptional experience for all users through making better and more efficient use of the site”.

> Also read: Purcell completes £5m Wallace Collection reconstruction

The job will include finding new ways to display the museum’s world-famous collection of armour and its collection of mediaeval and renaissance works of art and 19th century French paintings, which it said are currently housed in “outdated and tired” galleries. 

The museum is also looking to rethink the building’s layout, including its current ground floor entrance space, which it described as “convoluted and confusing”.

“The ambition is to develop a site-wide response which will address a wide variety of challenges and opportunities posed by the existing building, and therefore deliver a holistic transformation of the Wallace Collection,” the brief said.

Interested firms have until 20 November to send in tenders, with a maximum of six candidates to be shortlisted in early December.

Previous upgrades to the museum include Purcell’s £5m refurbishment of its Great Gallery with Dublin architect John O’Connell with whom the practice has collaborated on a dozen previous gallery refurbishments at the Wallace Collection.