(Roughly) Daily

Actually, sometimes architecture is buried– or at least demolished. And occasionally, as in the “refurbishing” of the Sainsbury Wing of London’s National Gallery, that unearths a surprise. Martin Bailey reports…

A “time capsule” has been discovered at London’s National Gallery, buried deep in a column in the foyer of the Sainsbury Wing. It is a letter recording that one of the wing’s funders, John Sainsbury (Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover), believed the architects had committed a serious “mistake”. The 1990 letter, typed on Sainsbury’s supermarket notepaper, has recently been deposited in the gallery’s archive as an historic document.

John Sainsbury is critical in the letter of the American post-Modernist architect Robert Venturi and his professional partner and wife Denise Scott Brown for inserting two large false columns in the gallery’s foyer that served no structural purpose. Other than the false columns, John Sainsbury was happy with the Venturi and Scott Brown design.

While building work was under way, Sainsbury gained access to the site and dropped his letter into a concrete column that was under construction. The letter, protected in a plastic folder, was discovered last year, when the foyer was being reconfigured.

The Sainsbury letter of 26 July 1990 was addressed “To those who find this note”—who turned out to be the 2023 demolition workers.

John and his wife Anya presumably never imagined that the demolition of the Sainsbury Wing foyer might take place during their lifetimes. John, one of the most generous UK donors to the arts, died in 2022, aged 94. His widow Anya, a former ballerina, was present when her husband’s note was removed. “I was so happy for John’s letter to be rediscovered after all these years,” she says, “and I feel he would be relieved and delighted for the gallery’s new plans and the extra space they are creating.”…

From the annals of architecture– a dissenting voice from the past: “Sainsbury Wing contractors find 1990 letter from donor anticipating their demolition of false columns,” from @TheArtNewspaper.

But lest we forget that when one critic is assuaged, others are appalled: “Eight Prestigious Architects Blast Annabelle Selldorf’s Proposed $40 Million Redesign of London’s National Gallery, Likening It to an ‘Airport Lounge’,” from @artnet.

(Image above: source)

* Frank Lloyd Wright

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As we deconstruct design, we might send peaceful birthday greetings to Stephen Geary; he was born on this date in 1797. An architect who designed everything from gin palaces to the (short-lived) monument to King George IV that gave King’s Cross its name, he is best remembered for Highgate Cemetery, opened in 1839, and later to be his resting place, where he designed the Egyptian Avenue and the Terrace Catacombs. He also designed Gravesend, Nunhead, and Brompton Cemeteries, and founded the London Cemetery Company, established by Act of Parliament in 1836, which owned Highgate Cemetery and Nunhead Cemetery.