The Trafalgar Square facade

From the square, let your eye follow the long front towards the central columns. William Wilkins designed this building for the National Gallery, which opened here in 1838. The collection had begun fourteen years earlier in a house on Pall Mall. Moving it to Trafalgar Square gave a growing public collection a much larger and more prominent home. Extensions behind and beside the front later changed the galleries visitors use. The Portico is now an exit, while the main entrance is in the Sainsbury Wing to the west. You can study the architecture from the public pedestrian space without climbing the Portico steps.