The National Gallery
Projects
Celebrating our Nation’s collection of great art
Projects
- The Portico Shop
Awards
- FX Design Awards 2023 – Shortlisted
A seamless extension of the Gallery experience
The Portico Shop has been designed to become an integral part of the National Gallery experience, allowing the institution to engage and inspire visitors in novel and exciting ways. Inspired by the conservation work carried out at the National Gallery, the space offers a multi-sensory, three-dimensional experience, drawing influence from the Gallery’s unforgettable art, heritage and architecture.
Flexible layout design
Located centrally on the second floor of the National Gallery, the Portico Shop is a windowless space and to address this, we designed four 3.5m high lightbox panels and a back wall illumination brought in through screens, to bring a sense of light and brightness into the room. Another key consideration was for these panels to use the height of the space to help draw people into the store and to define zones. All the panels can rotate easily to create different layouts including a shop-in-shop for seasonal offerings.
This is truly a space to be proud of and one that is befitting a national institution such as the National Gallery. This has been a fantastic project to work on and I look forward to working with the team again in the near future.
Mark Middleton
The new Portico Shop is a celebration of our Nation’s collection of great art, and also the iconic architecture of the Gallery that surrounds it, which celebrates its 200th Anniversary in 2024. The shop is designed as an extension of the Gallery, giving visitors a seamless experience that connects them with the art that they’ve come to see in new and engaging ways.
James Dwyer
