National Gallery, London

The National Gallery in London was founded in 1824 when the British government purchased a private collection of paintings for public display, and it moved into its present building on the north side of Trafalgar Square in 1838, designed by the architect William Wilkins with a long Neoclassical facade, portico and central dome. The building has been extended several times as the collection grew, most notably with the addition of the Sainsbury Wing on its western side, completed in 1991 to a Postmodern design by the American architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown that echoes the classical rhythm of Wilkins's original facade while housing the museum's collection of early Renaissance paintings. The gallery holds one of the most important collections of Western European painting from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century anywhere in the world, and unlike many national collections it has been free to enter for the general public since its founding. Its prominent position facing Trafalgar Square has made the building itself, as much as its collection, one of the most recognized civic landmarks in central London.