The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected Venturi Scott Brown's Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery of London as the recipient of the 2019 AIA Twenty-five Year Award. Designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in an international competition, AIA commended the project for its ability to ?...make its context better than it found it? - a citation borrowed from Venturi himself.

© Valentino Danilo Matteis

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected Venturi Scott Brown's Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery of London as the recipient of the 2019 AIA Twenty-five Year Award. Designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in an international competition, AIA commended the project for its ability to ?...make its context better than it found it? - a citation borrowed from Venturi himself. The award is presented annually to a project that has "stood the test of time by embodying architectural excellence for 25 to 35 years."
© Valentino Danilo Matteis

The Sainsbury Wing may appear conservative, but was both itself contentious and a part of a raging debate about public architecture when it was introduced. The addition to the National Gallery was initially planned in the 1980s, and was at the time to be designed by Ahrends Burton Koralek, a British practice known for their large public works across the UK and Ireland. Their scheme however, an example of the British Hi-Tech movement (popularized by Norman Fo...