{"id":370797,"date":"2026-01-15T06:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370797\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T06:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:02:12","slug":"riba-to-move-collections-to-temporary-home-in-kew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370797\/","title":{"rendered":"RIBA to move collections to temporary home in Kew"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, the institute and the National Archives<\/a> announced a partnership to temporarily house the RIBA Drawings and Archives Collections<\/a> after the V&A+RIBA Architecture Partnership concludes next year.<\/p>\n

According to the RIBA, the collaboration with the National Archives will provide public access to the collections, which have been stored at the V&A\u2019s South Kensington home since 2004. The new arrangement will also provide a home for the RIBA Collections team, including those carrying out conservation and digitisation.<\/p>\n

RIBA executive director of architecture programmes and collections Oliver Urquhart Irvine said the move would allow the collections to \u2018remain as widely accessible and well-cared for as possible during a period of institutional transformation\u2019.<\/p>\n

He added: \u2018This collaboration is not only about preserving access to RIBA\u2019s Drawings and Archives Collections, but also about developing new partnerships with like-minded cultural institutions so that we can make new connections with specialist researchers and the general public alike.\u2019<\/p>\n

In 2020, AOC Architecture<\/a> completed the first phase of the redevelopment of the National Archive\u2019s base in Kew, stripping back the interiors of the Brutalist 1970s Q1 building to reveal the original coffered concrete ceiling, and increasing the volume of the spaces.<\/p>\n

No official announcment has yet been made about where the RIBA\u2019s collections might be permanently housed.<\/p>\n

In October, the AJ exclusively revealed they could become part of a public-facing \u2018museum of architecture\u2019 under plans which might involve the former Museum of London building.<\/p>\n

It is understood the institute wants to create a standalone museum to store and showcase its huge archives, and is still considering several London locations with spaces between 1,800m\u00b2 to 3,700m\u00b2.<\/p>\n

These include the former Museum of London site<\/a> in the City of London. The 1976 building on the edge of the Barbican estate, designed by Powell and Moya, is set to be demolished under plans by Sheppard Robson and Diller Scofidio + Renfro but is currently occupied by meanwhile uses and a sixth-form centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The RIBA is in the process of carrying out its \u00a385 million House of Architecture programme, having allocated around \u00a358.8 million to the Benedetti-designed refurbishment<\/a> of its 66 Portland Place headquarters in central London. A further \u00a326.2 million has been set aside for other improvements, including tech upgrades, a rebrand and the collections.<\/p>\n

The AJ understands that the museum of architecture proposal would increase the total House of Architecture budget by roughly \u00a315 million, potentially taking it to more than \u00a3100 million.<\/p>\n

The institute has been working on creating its own, public-facing museum for some time. Speaking to the AJ before his departure as RIBA president last August, Muyiwa Oki revealed the institute\u2019s intentions<\/a> to evolve its collections plans into an accessible museum.<\/p>\n

\u2018We have updated our thinking as to what is fundable,\u2019 he said, \u2018and updated our goals to have something similar to the V&A East Storehouse, where it\u2019s both a public attraction as well as back-of-house storage for the ever-increasing collection that we have instead.\u2019<\/p>\n

As a result of the work at 66 Portland Place, the RIBA Library and the Photographs Collection previously housed in the building have been relocated to the London Archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The RIBA Study Room currently at V&A South Kensington will remain open until 25 June, but will then close until late 2027 while the collection is audited, packed and transferred across the capital to the National Archives.<\/p>\n

From autumn 2027, the Drawings and Archives Collection will be accessible via a new study space at Kew.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the RIBA announced the appointment of three new board trustees and, for the first time, a board advisor, specialising in marketing and communications.<\/p>\n

At a RIBA Council meeting the four new members were appointed for an initial three-year term, which will begin in April 2026.\u00a0 They are: chief financial officer at the Government Property Agency, Nick Brown; programme director of the World Architecture Festival; Paul Finch; and investment banker and chair of the board of trustees at the Northern Ballet, Guy Perricone, with is marketing director at Samsung UK, Tanya Weller, joining as a board advisor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday, the institute and the National Archives announced a partnership to temporarily house the RIBA Drawings and Archives…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-370797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}