Dulwich Picture Gallery - Gallery Design

Gallery Design

Dulwich Picture Gallery's clear design and basic architecture of a series of interlinked rooms lit by natural light through overhead skylights has been the primary influence on art gallery design ever since. Soane designed the sky lights to illuminate the paintings indirectly, and gave us one the great small galleries in which to look at oil paintings.

John Soane's design is particularly significant in art gallery construction due to its lack of relation to traditional architectural practices or schools of architecture. Instead of constructed a facade with the stucco porticos favoured by many contemporary architects, Soane opted to use uninterrupted raw brick in his design, a feature that has subsequently been adopted by many modern art galleries in the 20th century. The architect Philip Johnson said of the space "Soane has taught us how to display paintings".

Before Soane settled on the final design, he proposed a number of other ideas for the new building, revolving around a quadrangle belonging to the Alleyn's charitable foundation, to the south of the existing College buildings. These schemes proved too ambitious and in the end only the gallery was built, conceived originally as one of the wings of the quadrangle. The mausoleum too was Soane’s idea, as Bourgeois had merely indicated a desire to be buried in the College Chapel. Soane however recalled Bourgeois' desire to construct a mausoleum in Desenfan's home and his resulatant design was axiomatic to that of the Charlotte Street house. Bourgeois and Desenfans, along with Desenfans' wife, who died in 1815, are buried in the Gallery's mausoleum. Alms houses constructed by Soane along the west side of the gallery were converted into exhibition space by Charles Barry, Jr. in 1880 and an eastward extension was built to designs by E S Hall between 1908 and 1938.

On 12 July 1944, during World War II, the mausoleum and west wing galleries were badly damaged by a German V1 flying bomb; apparently, the bones were scattered across the lawn in front of the gallery. The three sarcophagi in the mausoleum now once again contain approximately a skeleton each. The buildings were refurbished by Austin Vernon and Partners, and re-opened by The Queen Mother on 27 April 1953.

A modern extension designed by Rick Mather was built in 1999, adding a café, educational facilities, a lecture theatre, a new entrance and glazed walkway, and joining the building to the chapel and offices of Alleyn's College. Parts of Soane's original design were also restored, having been changed during previous extensions. This latest refurbishment was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 25 May 2000.