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4/8/2004

Two Buildings - One Vision

Playfair Link, Edinburgh

Two Buildings - One Vision
THE PLAYFAIR LINK NEARS COMPLETION:
WORLD-CLASS VISUAL ARTS COMPLEX
TO OPEN IN EDINBURGH THIS SUMMER

One of the world's finest visual arts complexes will open in the heart of Edinburgh this August, with the realisation of the final phase of the Playfair Project. The opening of the Playfair Link - an ingeniously designed underground link between the National Gallery of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy Building - will bring to completion this ambitious £30 million project. The five-year scheme has already seen the restoration and refurbishment of the RSA Building, which opened to the public in August 2003.

The Playfair Link, originally due for completion in spring 2005, will now open on 5 August 2004, coinciding with the National Gallery's festival exhibition The Age of Titian, on show in the RSA.

The Playfair Project has given Scotland a gallery space of international standing: the landmark RSA Building, with its prime location in the centre of Edinburgh's world-famous Princes Street, has been equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, and contains 1500 square metres of the finest exhibition space anywhere in the world. The gallery is now a world-class venue for major exhibitions, such as the record-breaking Monet: The Seine and the Sea, organised by the National Gallery of Scotland in summer 2003, which attracted more than 170,000 visitors.

Michael Clarke, Director of the National Gallery of Scotland and Director of the Playfair Project, said: 'This is the most ambitious project ever undertaken by the Galleries and, in many ways, the most demanding. Its completion will transform the facilities we shall be able to offer to our visitors from Scotland and around the world.'
The Playfair Link, which has been designed by award-winning architects John Miller and Partners, will house a range of new visitor facilities, including the Clore Education Centre, comprising a 200-seat lecture theatre and cinema, an Education Room, Information Technology Gallery and Schools Room. Within the Link there will also be enhanced visitor services and orientation area as well as a 120-seat restaurant overlooking the spectacular views of Princes Street Gardens, a café, shop and cloakrooms.

Maureen Finn, Head of Education, said:
'These new facilities will enable us to offer a huge range of educational events in a comfortable and stimulating environment. We will now be in a position to cater for many new audiences by offering talks, workshops and films that will hopefully encourage people to become regular attenders.'

The Link has been built beneath the mound, between the landmark buildings designed by William Henry Playfair in the nineteenth century. A new entrance to the complex will lead directly from Princes Street Gardens, and both the National Gallery and the RSA will be accessed directly from the Link by circular staircases and lifts. Other projects by John Miller and Partners, the architects for the Playfair Project, include Tate Britain at Millbank, London; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; and the Serpentine Gallery, London.

The Playfair Project is a tribute to Scottish fundraising, with major contributions from the Scottish Executive and the Heritage Lottery Fund: more than £12 million (representing over a third of the matching funds), has been raised from sources worldwide, from both corporate and individual donors. The 'Athens of the North' scheme is a further fundraising initiative aimed at individual donors and smaller organisations.

There has long been a need for a dedicated, state-of-the art exhibition space in Scotland. The National Gallery of Scotland, which is home to one of the world's finest collections of Western art from the Renaissance to Post-Impressionism, has, until now, lacked the facilities to host large loan exhibitions under its own roof. The RSA Building, which has the space, had been in urgent need of repair for many years. When work began on the project in 1999, the first step was to shore up the building's foundations by replacing the original timber piles with 350,000 litres of concrete. The interior of the RSA, virtually untouched since 1910, has been completely renovated and upgraded with the provision of air-conditioning, security and top-class lighting. Because of these new facilities, the National Galleries of Scotland, whose collections are internationally renowned, can now mount a programme of international blockbuster exhibitions.

The opening of the Playfair Link on 5 August will be celebrated with this summer's major exhibition, The Age of Titian: Venetian Renaissance Art from Scottish Collections, which will be shown in the upper and lower galleries of the refurbished RSA Building. Among the highlights of this stunning exhibition will be Titian's Venus Anadyomene (Venus Rising from the Sea), which was acquired by the National Gallery in February 2003, from Trustees of the Duke of Sutherland. Just one of ten masterpieces by Titian to be included in the exhibition, it will be shown alongside paintings by some of the artist's most illustrious contemporaries: Bellini, Lotto, Veronese, Tintoretto and Bassano. The exhibition has been generously sponsored by Lloyds TSB Scotland, marking the bank's fourth consecutive sponsorship of a National Galleries of Scotland show.

The Playfair Project
Edinburg

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