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A third of the British Museum’s huge gallery space is set to be redeveloped by Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh. Her firm, Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture (LGA), beat 59 other contenders to win the exciting project, hailed by the museum as being ‘one of the biggest cultural renovations undertaken anywhere in the world’.
The British Museum praised the Paris-based firm’s renders for their ‘deep understanding and sensitivity towards the museum’, as well as their ‘archaeological approach’. It was the ‘unanimous favourite’ of the five shortlisted firms, and LGA will now work with museum experts to develop initial designs, expected to be revealed in mid-2026.
The competition ran for nine months last year and was judged by an expert panel of members of the architecture industry as well as artist Tracy Emin, museum chair George Osborne and museum director Nicholas Cullinan.
It’s all part of the museum’s grand ‘masterplan’, which involves an Energy Centre Programme aimed at reducing its carbon footprint, a new state-of-the-art collection storage and research facility which opened in Reading last summer, and a visitor centre to replace the current security tents.
However, the redevelopment isn’t without its controversies. When the competition was announced in 2024, activist group BP or not BP? urged architects not to work with the museum due to its partnership with oil company BP. The museum had announced in 2023 that it was no longer going to partner with the firm, which frequently sponsored annual headline exhibitions, but confirmed just months later that BP would be funding £50 million of the masterplan redevelopment project. Activists called this decision ‘astonishingly out of touch’ and ‘completely indefensible’.
Lina Ghotmeh’s previous work includes the 2023 Serpentine Pavilion in Kensington Gardens, the Estonian National Museum, and the Hermès Leather Workshop in Normandy, France's first low-carbon, energy-positive building.
Ghotmeh said: 'This competition has been an exciting process shaped by dialogue and multiple voices. I am looking forward to continuing this rich and collaborative process as we work towards transforming this section of the Museum into an extraordinary space – a place of connections for the world and of the world.'
Osborne, chairman of the British Museum and chair of the judging panel, said: ‘When we moved into our current building 200 years ago the world was wowed. I believe they will be wowed again when this transformation of our great sculpture galleries, and much more, is complete.’
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