Smithsonian In Talks Over London Outpost — Its First Overseas

The institution’s Board of Regents has authorized museum officials to explore the Smithsonian’s first international gallery outpost. Its home: the site of London’s Olympic Park.

If negotiations are successful, the Smithsonian would join the Victoria and Albert Museum, University of the Arts London and Sadler’s Wells in the nearly 82,000 square-foot project.

London Mayor Boris Johnson and project developers have secured $50 million in private contributions for the Smithsonian to help anchor in a new “Olympicopolis,” the name for the new cultural center scheduled to open in 2021 at the site of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

John McCarter, chairman of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, noted that the Louvre, the British Museum and other cultural institutions already have a global presence.

“This is an opportunity for the Smithsonian to move into a global context in the way some of our peer institutions … have done,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “So it’s a great opportunity for us to get started and really to tell America’s story.”

In a statement, Johnson, the London mayor, said it “would be a massive coup to attract the Smithsonian Institution to east London.”

The Smithsonian, the world’s largest museum and research complex, would be housed in a 40,000-square-foot gallery. It will feature permanent and rotating exhibits, programs and activities from Smithsonian museums in the U.S.

The AP has more:

“Smithsonian officials have consulted with political leaders and diplomats in Britain and the United States in pursuing the arrangement. They assured U.S. congressional leaders that the Smithsonian will not seek federal funding to support the expansion … The estimated operating cost of $5 million to $7 million annually would be supported through private fundraising, admission fees for certain programs, and retail or other offerings. Admission to the cultural center would be free. A design competition is under way to select an architect.”

In would in some ways be a homecoming for the Smithsonian, which was founded in 1846 with a $508,318 bequest (about $10 million in today’s money) from English scientist James Smithson, a man who had never set foot in the U.S.