Kengo Kuma to design wing

London’s National Gallery picked Kengo Kuma and Associates, working with BDP and MICA, to design a new wing on April 7, 2026, after an international competition that drew 65 entries and a shortlist of six teams. The museum says it is the biggest change to the institution since the gallery was founded in 1824. (nationalgallery.org.uk) The new building is not just extra square footage. It is the physical piece of Project Domani, a £750 million overhaul that also pushes the National Gallery past its old cutoff date of 1900 so it can show modern and contemporary painting alongside older works. (nationalgallery.org.uk) That shift sounds technical, but it changes what the museum is. The National Gallery has long been the place for European painting from the 13th century to about 1900, while Tate Modern and Tate Britain carried most of the story after that. (britannica.com, tate.org.uk) Now the National Gallery wants to tell one continuous story of Western painting in one building, which is why it needs new galleries, new circulation space, and an acquisitions fund for art made after 1900. Museums Journal reported that the expansion includes all three pieces, not just the wing itself. (museumsassociation.org) Kuma’s team will build on the site of St Vincent House, a 1960s hotel and office block behind the recently refurbished Sainsbury Wing and the North Galleries. Early images show a stone-heavy scheme with a new entrance volume, landscaped public space, and a rooftop open to visitors. (dezeen.com, monocle.com) The location matters because it sits between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square, two of the busiest pedestrian zones in central London. The Art Newspaper says the plan includes a bridge between the old and new wings and an “activated public realm” along Jubilee Walk, which means the project is also trying to reroute how people move around the site. (theartnewspaper.com) Kengo Kuma is the architect behind the V and A Dundee museum in Scotland, the Japan National Stadium used for the Tokyo Olympics, and dozens of projects that use textured surfaces, screens, and layered materials instead of one flat monumental facade. That makes him a notable choice for a museum facing one of London’s most formal civic spaces. (kkaa.co.jp, olympics.com) He also beat a field full of architects who already know how to build cultural landmarks. Reports on the shortlist named Foster and Partners, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Selldorf Architects, 6a architects, and David Chipperfield Architects among the finalists or contenders in the process. (architecturalrecord.com, wallpaper.com) The price tag for the wing itself is about £350 million, while the wider Project Domani program is budgeted at £750 million and is tied to a fundraising campaign of roughly $1 billion in United States dollar terms. Big museum additions usually work like this: the building is also a fundraising machine, because donors will back galleries, roofs, education spaces, and named rooms more readily when there is a visible new object to give to. (theartnewspaper.com, archpaper.com) The timeline is long enough that London will live with this argument for years. The Art Newspaper reports the wing is due to open in the early 2030s, which means the real debate starts now: how much modern art belongs in a museum built around Raphael, Titian, and Vincent van Gogh, and how much a 21st-century addition should stand out next to Trafalgar Square’s stone front. (theartnewspaper.com, nationalgallery.org.uk)