The Royal Academy (RA) has announced plans to expand its Collection Gallery space in Burlington Gardens to the ground floor to create a new double-height gallery. The project will reinstate, in a modern interpretation of its original design, the examination room designed by Sir James Pennethorne in 1870 but lost to subdivision in the intervening years. It re-establishes the building’s original proportions, providing architectural balance alongside the East Wing’s reinstated lecture theatre. The project will create a 12-metre-high gallery with a timber mezzanine on the first floor, that references the original wooden walkways. It will significantly enhance the RA’s free offer for visitors by allowing for a greater selection of works from their expansive collection to be displayed.
The RA Collection Gallery project is funded by an anonymous donor and is the third phase of the RA's Masterplan Programme, following the practice’s transformative redevelopment completed in 2018 and the RA Schools restoration and renewal, completed in 2024. The expanded gallery will open in 2027.