Project Domini: The £375 Million Physical and Artistic Expansion of London’s National Gallery
By Millie Barker
The National Gallery.
Image courtesy of the National Gallery.
The National Gallery has announced its plans to expand after receiving £375 million in donations. The new wing will be built on the current site of St Vincent House; a 1960s building acquired thirty years ago and set to be demolished. The expansion will also revitalise the area between Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square—reaffirming the importance of the Gallery within London’s cultural scene.
The National Gallery was founded by Parliament in 1824 and as the bicentenary celebrations have now come to a close, Project Domini signifies the intention to step forwards into the Gallery’s third century, while reaffirming their founding commitment to make great art accessible to all. The Director of the National Gallery, Sir Gabriele Finaldi believes the project ‘will bolster the relevance of both the National Gallery and the UK within the highly competitive global cultural landscape.’
A site plan showing Saint Vincent House in red.
Image courtesy of the National Gallery.
The project is estimated to cost £400 million and will be opened in the early 2030s. Of the £375 already raised, £150 million was donated by Crankstart, the foundation set-up by venture capitalist and art collector Michael Mortz with his wife Harriet Heyman as part of their pledge to donate half of their wealth to charitable causes. Another £150 million came from the Julia Rausing Trust, founded by Hans Kristian Rausing in memory of his wife who died in April 2024. The final £75 million was raised by the National Gallery Trust and other anonymous bodies. Standing as the two largest ever publicly reported cash donations to any cultural institution globally, the funding reinforces the Gallery’s role on the world stage.
The new wing, with space to hang 250 paintings and house a temporary exhibition area, marks not only a physical expansion but also an artistic expansion as the Gallery intends to revise its collecting strategy. The current collection of paintings spans the Western European tradition from the early-thirteenth century to the cut-off date of 1900. Project Domini intends to grow beyond this and acquire works that span the chronological and geographical expanse of the twentieth century—from the late French Impressionists up to the present day. A partnership with the Tate is to be formed in order to navigate this fundamental shift in their collection strategy and to negotiate the standing agreement made in 1996 that the Gallery would not own works from after 1900. Maria Balshaw, the director of the Tate, has welcomed the collaboration as an opportunity to ‘further the national collection as a whole.’
St Vincent House.
Image courtesy of the National Gallery.
Finaldi shared the reasoning behind the artistic expansion, stating that ‘the story of painting is a continuum—it reflects how artists and the societies in which they lived have responded to myth and religion, history and contemporary events, landscape, and the human form, and to the tradition of art itself.’ He believes that it is essential that the National Gallery continues ‘to evolve and extend the story it tells, as 1900 gets further and further away it will be natural for us to tell a bigger story.’ We can only hope that this story will bring balance to the geographical and gender focus of the current collection.
Bibliography
Apollo. “National Gallery announces £400m extension.” Apollo Magazine, September 9, 2025. https://apollo-magazine.com/national-gallery-new-wing-400m-project-domani-gabriele-finaldi-tate-partnership/.
Bailey, Matin. “London’s National Gallery receives record-breaking donations for new wing—and will start collecting contemporary art.” The Art Newspaper, September 8, 2025. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/09/09/london-national-gallery-receives-record-breaking-donations-for-new-wing-and-will-start-collecting-contemporary-art.
Bakare, Lanre. “National Gallery to build £375m new wing and lift ban on post-1900 art.” The Guardian, September 9, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/sep/09/national-gallery-lifts-ban-post-1900-paintings-375m-investment.
Grew, Tony. “National Gallery gets £375m donations for new wing.” BBC News, September 14, 2025. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz083d1pz44o.
Prodger, Michael. “A New Dawn for the National Gallery?” Apollo Magazine, September 17, 2025. https://apollo-magazine.com/national-gallery-collection-after-1900-contemporary-art-tate-dispute/?itm_source=parsely-api.
The National Gallery. “A New Tomorrow for the National Gallery.” Press Release issued September 2025. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/press-and-media/press-releases/a-new-tomorrow-for-the-national-gallery.