New extension at National Gallery of Scotland (ctd.)
September 26 2018
The on again/off again extension at the National Gallery of Scotland here in Edinburgh is back on track. The last one was scrapped because costs got out of control. The new one is more expensive, but seems to be more realistic, from an engineering point of view, as it won't involve such significant work on the railway bridges beneath the Gallery.
The aim is to create a new display area for the Scottish art collection, which used to be housed in a subterranean extension that was more like an old car park than a gallery. The old gallery has been closed for over a year now, with highlights of the Scottish collection squeezed in willy nilly with the European Old Masters upstairs in the main galleries. It's a bit of a mess to be honest. Construction will take two years from October. Alongside the new display area will be a larger shop, and a new cafe. But still, as far as I can gather, no office spaces for the curators, who have all been shipped off site.
More here.
Incidentally, as part of the new management restructuring at the Galleries (which abolished individual museum directors), the former head of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Dr Christopher Baker, is now styled as "Director, European and Scottish Art and Portraiture". Quite where the likes of Hogarth fit into all this, I'm not sure.
