Courtauld to embark on £82m campus project at Somerset House in London | The Courtauld Institute of Art

The Courtauld has unveiled an £82m campus redevelopment it is calling a “once-in-a-generation transformation” of its Grade-I listed building at Somerset House in London.

The Stirling prize-winning architects Witherford Watson Mann will take charge of the project at the teaching and research centre and public gallery, which follows their 2021 revamp of the Courtauld Gallery space, and is expected to take four years to complete. The Courtauld Institute of Art is an independent college of the University of London, founded in the 1930s, focusing on the teaching and research of art history.

Prof Mark Hallett, Märit Rausing director of the Courtauld, said: “Our gallery is the most elegant and beautiful gallery in the UK and this next phase is about creating an amazing new campus for the academic institute while bringing everything back under one roof … It’s going to be something that’s really fit for the students of today.”

The renovation work will take place in the east wing of Somerset House, with the institute connected to several townhouses on the Strand.

The work means the Courtauld’s teaching spaces, currently situated in King’s Cross in north London, will sit on the same site as its gallery, creating what the institution is calling “a flexible, state-of-the-art campus and [secure] its legacy for the next 100 years”.

Alongside the announcement, new research was commissioned by the institution, which shows that over the past decade the number of UK schools offering art history A-level has fallen by 37%, from 122 in 2016 to 77. All of those are in England, with most in London and the south-east. Only 19 of the 77 are state schools.

Hallett said the research was a “platform to move forward”, with the institution planning to assist schools that wanted to teach art history, although this project is in early planning stages and no details were ready to be announced.

The late art historian and former director of the Courtauld Michael Kauffmann moved the institution from its “exquisite goldfish bowl in Portman Square” to Somerset House in the late 1980s. It also has a gallery with a collection that includes several masterpieces, such as Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, Botticelli’s The Trinity With Saints and Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear.

The shift was a success, with student numbers almost doubling by the time of Kauffman’s departure six years later. Alumni include the current British Museum director, Nicholas Cullinan, the Arts Council England chair, Sir Nicholas Serota, and the National Gallery chief, Gabriele Finaldi.

Hallett said the renovation was the completion of Kauffmann’s original vision.

He said: “It’s revisiting what Michael wanted to see happening when he moved the Courtauld to Somerset House, but it’s making sure that we’re doing things at a really high level in terms of the environment we provide.”

The institution’s gallery was reopened in 2021 after a three-year, £57m renovation project which was widely praised, with the Observer calling it “a masterclass in tasteful updating”.

Witherford Watson Mann, the architects behind the redesign, recently won the Stirling prize for their Appleby Blue Almshouse housing complex in Southwark, London.

The substantial overhaul of the Courtauld’s teaching spaces is being paid for by donations, including a record £30m from the Reuben Foundation and the Blavatnik Family Foundation, which gave £10m to the gallery in 2020.

Other donors include the Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation, the Clore Duffield Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, Oak Foundation, the Julia Rausing Trust, Rothschild Foundation, Georgia and David Winter and the Wolfson Foundation.

The project is expected to be completed in 2029.