{"id":35660,"date":"2025-11-29T14:17:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T14:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=35660"},"modified":"2025-11-29T14:17:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T14:17:27","slug":"courtauld-to-embark-on-82m-campus-project-at-somerset-house-in-london-the-courtauld-institute-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=35660","title":{"rendered":"Courtauld to embark on \u00a382m campus project at Somerset House in London | The Courtauld Institute of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Courtauld has unveiled an \u00a382m campus redevelopment it is calling a \u201conce-in-a-generation transformation\u201d of its Grade-I listed building, Somerset House, in London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Stirling prize-winning architects Witherford Watson Mann will take charge of the four-year project at the teaching and research centre and public gallery, which follows their 2021 revamp of the Courtauld Gallery space. The Courtauld Institute of Art is an independent college of the University of London, focusing on the teaching and research of art history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Prof Mark Hallett, the Ma\u0308rit Rausing director of the Courtauld, said: \u201cOur gallery is the<em> <\/em>most elegant and beautiful gallery in the UK and this next phase is about creating an amazing new campus for the academic institute while bringing everything back under one roof \u2026 It\u2019s going to be something that\u2019s really fit for the students of today.<em>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dcr-1inf02i\"><\/span><span class=\"dcr-1qvd3m6\">A rendering of the new Courtauld Institute entrance.<\/span> Illustration: Secchi Smith<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The renovation work will take place in the east wing of Somerset House, with the institute being newly connected to several townhouses on the Strand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The work means the Courtauld\u2019s teaching spaces, currently situated in King\u2019s Cross, north London, will move to the same site as its gallery, creating what the institution is calling \u201ca flexible, state-of-the-art campus and [securing] its legacy for the next 100 years\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Research commissioned by the institution shows that over the past decade the number of UK schools offering A-level art history has fallen by 37%, from 122 in 2016 to 77. All of those are in England, with most in London and the south-east. Only 19 of the 77 are state schools.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Hallett said the institution planned to helpp schools that wanted to teach art history, although this project was in its early planning stages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The late art historian and former director of the Courtauld Michael Kauffmann moved the institution from its \u201cexquisite goldfish bowl in Portman Square\u201d to Somerset House in the late 1980s. The gallery\u2019s collection includes several masterpieces, such as Manet\u2019s A Bar at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re, Botticelli\u2019s The Trinity With Saints and Van Gogh\u2019s Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The move was a success, with student numbers almost doubling by the time Kauffman left six years later. Alumni include the British Museum director, Nicholas Cullinan, the Arts Council England chair, Sir Nicholas Serota, and the National Gallery chief, Gabriele Finaldi.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dcr-1inf02i\"><\/span><span class=\"dcr-1qvd3m6\">Michael Kauffmann in front of Somerset House.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Hallett said the renovation was the completion of Kauffmann\u2019s original vision. \u201cIt\u2019s revisiting what Michael wanted to see happening when he moved the Courtauld to Somerset House, but it\u2019s making sure that we\u2019re doing things at a really high level in terms of the environment we provide<em>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The gallery was reopened in 2021 after a three-year, \u00a357m renovation which the Observer described as \u201ca masterclass in tasteful updating\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Witherford Watson Mann recently won the Stirling prize for their Appleby Blue Almshouse housing complex in Southwark, London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The overhaul of the Courtauld\u2019s teaching spaces is being paid for by donations, including a record \u00a330m from the Reuben Foundation, and from the Blavatnik Family Foundation, which gave \u00a310m to the gallery in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Courtauld has unveiled an \u00a382m campus redevelopment it is calling a \u201conce-in-a-generation transformation\u201d of its Grade-I listed building, Somerset House, in London. The Stirling prize-winning architects Witherford Watson Mann will take charge of the four-year project at the teaching and research centre and public gallery, which follows their 2021 revamp of the Courtauld Gallery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[20048,3153,4320,20046,20047,671,2041,1661,370,4603],"class_list":{"0":"post-35660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-82m","9":"tag-art","10":"tag-campus","11":"tag-courtauld","12":"tag-embark","13":"tag-house","14":"tag-institute","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-project","17":"tag-somerset"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}