The Courtauld unveils opening programme as major modernisation project reaches completion artdaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from artdaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Courtauld at Somerset House. Photo:
Benedict Johnson.
London’s Courtauld Gallery has completed work on a modernization project that has been underway since 2018.
Today, June 9, the gallery revealed images of its revamped interiors at Somerset House ahead of its reopening in November.
Architects Witherford Watson Mann have designed the redevelopment of the building originally completed by Sir William Chambers in the 1770s. The ambitious overhaul plan includes a renovation of the institution’s existing exhibition spaces, two new galleries to house temporary exhibitions, and improved accessibility.
The project is supported with £11 million ($15.5 million) in public funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, as well as significant private funding, including a £10 million ($14.1 million) gift from the Ukraine-born British-American philanthropist Leonard Blavatnik.
The art director of this year’s London Design Biennale, Es Devlin, intends to challenge archaic design principles and highlight current climate concerns by planting 400 trees in the heart of the capital.
Somerset House was built in line with the principles of the Enlightenment, an intellectual and philosophical movement in 17th and 18th century Europe. At the centre of this was a synthesis of scientific discovery and reason, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition.
In architecture this was represented through neoclassicism – a style looking at the formal designs of the ancient Greeks and Romans while conforming to the rationality of science. In reaction to the floral excesses of the baroque and rococo, Enlightenment buildings were designed on the principles of simplicity, symmetry, mathematical precision and absolute functionality. In short, the defined, measurable restraint of science versus the indeterminate, unpredictability of nat
Six abandoned and lost Dorset villages you never knew about Dorset has a vast history spanning many centuries, with developments over the years changing the face of the county. While some towns grew in size due to more and more people settling in Dorset, other villages or settlements just became abandoned and were lost in time. These were later uncovered by historians or by archaeological digs. Some villages were abandoned for varying reasons or were just simply destroyed. Not a lot is known about some of these lost Dorset villages, so there is limited information available. Here are a number of lost Dorset villages that time has forgotten about.