British Museum launches design competition for gallery redevelopment

The British Museum’s (BM) has launched an international competition to find the architectural team that will redesign its galleries currently housing the Parthenon Sculptures as well as collections from Ancient Egypt and the Middle East.

The London national’s masterplan, which received £50m of funding from BP at the end of last year, includes the redevelopment of a third of its galleries, as well as the recently completed Energy Centre and Archaeological Research Collection (BM_ARC) at Thames Valley Research Park.  

The two-stage competition is not to find a winning design for “the Western Range” (the series of galleries on the western side of the museum in the Smirke building).

Instead, a judging panel will shortlist the design teams that show “creative ability and design flair” and expertise in environmental and economic sustainability.

As well as essential restoration work to the original Greek Revival building, the brief includes improved collections storage and the creation of new amenities to enhance the visitor experience and make the collection accessible to different audiences.

It is hoped that the galleries, which currently display the BM’s collections from Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Ancient Assyria and the Middle East, can remain open to visitors during the building works.

The first stage of the competition is an open call for expressions of interest from teams that believe they meet the criteria specified in the competition brief. The shortlisted teams will be announced in August, and then asked to expand on how they might approach this specific project. They will each receive an honorarium of £50,000 for this work.

The shortlisted proposals will form part of a public display at the end of the year. The winning team, which is expected to be announced in February 2025, will then work with the museum to collaboratively create the final designs.

George Osborne, who is chairman of the BM and will also chair the judging panel, said it hopes to find an architectural practice “with the imagination, the sympathy and the vision to help us rebuild and restore the most famous galleries of the museum”.

“In this home to the history of humanity, come help us – quite literally – build the future," he added.

Osborne is joined on the judging panel by Yvonne Farrell, Meneesha Kellay, Mahrukh Tarapor, Sarah Younger, Mark Jones, Nicholas Cullinan, Tracey Emin, Charlie Mayfield and Alejandro Santo Domingo.

The competition, which is being managed by Colander, is open for entries until Friday 21 June.

This will be the museum’s biggest building project since the 1820s, when work commenced on the original quadrangle.

The complexity of the spaces, and need to remain open to visitors, means the project is expected to be developed “over a number of years” and no commencement or completion dates have been publicly shared.