__NOTOC__ 6 Burlington Gardens is a Grade II*-listed building in Mayfair,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Built for the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, it has been used by various institutions in the course of its history, including the

Civil Service Commission A civil service commission is a government agency that is constituted by legislature to regulate the employment and working conditions of civil servants, oversee hiring and promotions, and promote the values of the public service. Its role is rough ...

, the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and, currently, the Royal Academy of Arts.

History

University of London and the Civil Service Commission

The

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

building was designed by Sir James Pennethorne between 1867 and 1870 as headquarters for the University of London. It occupied the northernmost section of the former garden of Burlington House. It was a grand building, but not especially large. The University of London is a federal university and this early central building contained little besides examination halls and a few offices; the premises of several of the constituent colleges were larger. The university vacated Burlington Gardens in 1900 for the

Imperial Institute The Commonwealth Education Trust is a registered charity established in 2007 as the successor trust to the Commonwealth Institute. The trust focuses on primary and secondary education and the training of teachers and invests on educational pro ...

building in South Kensington. Briefly the headquarters of the National Antarctic Expedition, in 1902 it was given to the Civil Service Commission.

Museum of Mankind

In 1970, this was the site of the Department of Ethnography of the

, which housed its collections from the Americas, Africa, the Pacific and Australia, as well as tribal Asia and Europe, because of lack of space in the Museum's main building in Bloomsbury. Between 1970 and 1997, the building, as the Museum of Mankind, hosted around 75 exhibitions, including many famous ones such as ''Nomad and City'', 1976, and ''Living Arctic'', 1987. It was created by Keeper of Ethnography Adrian Digby in the 1960s, and opened by his successor William Fagg. Fagg was succeeded by Malcolm Mcleod in 1974, and by John Mack in 1990. The museum ceased exhibiting at Burlington Gardens in 1997 and the Department of Ethnography moved back to the British Museum in Bloomsbury in 2004.

Royal Academy and private tenants

After the ethnography collection's return to Bloomsbury the building was purchased by the Royal Academy. In 1998 an architectural competition was held to connect it with Burlington House, which was won by Michael Hopkins & Partners. This was abandoned as the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

was not persuaded that there was sufficient need for the project, which would have cost £80 million. In about 2005 the building was brought back into use by the Royal Academy, the tenant of the original wing of Burlington House and the wing which lies between the two buildings. It was used mainly by the Royal Academy Schools. On 29 August 2006, the building was damaged by a fire, but there was no loss of academy artworks as it was being prepared for a future exhibition. Giampietrino-Last-Supper-ca-1520

In 2006 Colin St John Wilson drew up a masterplan for the whole complex, which included a more modest link between the buildings than that proposed by Hopkins. However, Wilson died the following year, which led to another competition being held in 2008, won by David Chipperfield Architects. In order to raise capital for Chipperfield's design, the building was lent to the commercial gallery

Haunch of Venison Haunch of Venison was a contemporary art gallery operating from 2002 until 2013. It supported the work of contemporary leading artists, presented a broad and critically acclaimed program of exhibitions to a large public through international exh ...

, which occupied the site from 2009 to 2011 while their existing building was being renovated. In 2012 space in the building was lent to the

Pace Gallery The Pace Gallery is an American contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong ...

, which occupies it on a 15-year lease. A second application to the HLF for £12.7m to go towards a £36 million project, was successful in 2013. This included a sculpture court in the bridge between the buildings, a lecture hall where that of the University of London originally stood and a permanent home for

Giampietrino Giampietrino, probably Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli (active 1495–1549), was a north Italian painter of the Lombard school and Leonardo's circle, succinctly characterized by S. J. Freedberg as an "exploiter of Leonardo's repertory."Freedberg, 1993 ...

’s full-size copy of

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

’s ''

Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, ...

''. The redevelopment was completed in 2018, in time for the academy's 250th anniversary that year.

References

External links