This is a courtyard overlooking Egzibition Road: a temporary exhibition hall (1500 m2) will be arranged under its surface, a cafe will be opened in the courtyard itself and its space will be adapted for holding installations and various events, and the entrance will be redesigned through the existing classical fence …
Despite the fact (or because) that we are talking about a historical building of the museum, a monument of the "first category" (Grade I), there is nothing original in the task of the competition (that is, potentially annoying one or another part of the public). This becomes apparent when one compares the current plans with Daniel Libeskind's Spiral, an architectural addition to the museum, which was supposed to have appeared almost a decade ago on the site of the same courtyard on Egzibition Road, but did not receive the necessary funding.
Another thing is interesting: a few months before the announcement of the competition, the same task - as an experiment - was given to a group of architectural workshops, selected by the management of the museum, eight in number. Their works were exhibited, and there was no hiding: the exhibition of these hypothetical variants is a "prelude" to the real competition.
The competition itself was soon announced and, according to the organizers, more than 110 bureaus from all over the world sent expressions of interest to them. Of these, seven finalists were selected, who then developed the projects presented today. But here's the funniest thing: five of them took part in that pretend competition. Of course, one can always argue that these architects already knew the situation perfectly, and the organizers understood what to expect from them, but in this case it would be more honest to hold a closed competition and not feed the vain hopes of the other hundred participants. This would probably not be democratic or even against British law, and therefore impossible. But as a result, this story unpleasantly resembles the situation around domestic tenders, with the help of which the choice of everything in the world is made - always with the expected result.
The five “vetted” contributors included Jamie Fobert Architects, Tony Fretton, heneghan.peng.architects, Amanda Leavith and Snohatta (in duet with Scots Gareth Hoskins Architects). They were joined by newcomers, the Japanese Jun Aoki & Associates and the Americans Michael Maltzan Architecture, probably to add ethnic and geographic diversity.
The "exhibition" projects of the same architects can be viewed here.
