Scottish National Gallery overhaul put back again as mystery surrounds final bill

The unveiling of a troubled overhaul of Scotland's flagship art gallery is expected to be delayed until after Edinburgh's summer festivals season.

The opening of new “world-class” exhibition spaces in the Scottish National Gallery complex, which should have happened five years ago, is believed to have been put back until at least September due to the amount of work still to be done.

The project is aimed at significantly increasing space devoted to Scottish artists like Phoebe Anna Traquair, William McTaggart, Anne Redpath, Sir Henry Raeburn and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Allan Ramsay, Gavin Hamilton and Sir David Wilkie.

New exhibition galleries will be accessible from East Princes Street Gardens and will boast views looking out onto the park and landmarks like the Scott Monument, the Balmoral North and North Bridge.

The delay is the latest setback for a project already five years late and running well over twice its original budget.

Work was said to be “entering its final phase” when the National Galleries last provided an update on its progress more than a year ago, when it admitted that it would not be ready in time for a previously-announced unveiling in late 2022.

Mystery surrounds the final bill for the Scottish Government-backed project, which has been in development since 2012 and was estimated to cost £9 million when Gareth Hoskins Architects were appointed in 2014.

There has been no official update on the cost since 2018 – the original year of completion – when the National Galleries revealed that the bill had risen by almost a third and would not be ready until early 2021.

However the project, which had previously been scaled back in a bid to keep its escalating costs down, has suffered a series of delays over the last five years.

The discovery of unexpected defects and undocumented obstructions within part of the construction site, the complex nature of the work and the impact of the Covid pandemic have all been blamed for the late running of the project.

The National Galleries of Scotland announced a year ago that the project had passed a series of “crucial milestones” which would allow the new galleries to open to the public in the summer of 2023. It later announced that a major retrospective of Grayson Perry’s work would be opening at the Royal Scottish Academy building on The Mound at the end of July.

Athough the exhibition is due to open as planned later this month, the National Galleries of Scotland has admitted that building work is still ongoing at The Mound, with installation of works of art at the new galleries and staff training still to be carried out.

A spokeswoman for the National Galleries said: “Last year we announced that the new Scottish galleries would open in summer 2023.

"We’re delighted the building work is nearing completion and our contractors are busy with the last finishing touches to the beautiful new gallery spaces.

"We’re now getting the building ready to open the new spaces to the public later this summer.

"This includes installing the art, new wayfinding and staff training. We’ll be announcing the official opening date very soon.

“The details on funding and costs will also be shared in the opening announcement.”