‘This is hostile furniture’: how the sale of National Gallery benches sparked a conversation on museum accessibility

This month, the National Gallery is selling its familiar red leather benches through auction house Bellmans.

According to the museum, the decision is part of a careful, year-long assessment and is intended to rationalise gallery seating throughout its spaces. The assessment evaluated the placement and grouping of benches, accessibility for visitors, and designs’ longevity, safety, compliance, and refurbishment requirements.

The 11 benches to be sold, which are reproductions of Victorian designs, made mostly in the 1980s and 1990s, have estimates of up to £1,200 each. The move comes amid the National Gallery’s ongoing redevelopment, which has so far seen the unveiling of a refurbished Sainsbury Wing, by Selldorf Architects, and includes plans to collect more modern and contemporary art.

However, the replacement of the gallery’s seating has sparked a minor controversy on social media, with opponents of the change bemoaning the loss.

‘The change is symptomatic of a far larger issue with the way we conceive museum spaces,’ says art historian and curator Isabelle Kent. ‘Museum spaces are not utilitarian, for you to come, see, and leave. They are leisure spaces for people to enjoy, explore, or simply be. The underlying idea of museums is lost when they are not comfortable spaces to be in.’

The new oak seating boasts a much more minimal, rational design that is backless. It is partly a response to health and safety, including fire risk; the previous wood and leather furnishings were difficult to clean and may have attracted pests, which could pose a threat to paintings.

Tracy Jones, head of communications at The National Gallery, tells Wallpaper*, ‘Benches were assessed by historical information, accessibility, impact on visitors’ flow, sustainability, storage and movability, futureproofing and timelessness. [The old] benches were made […] in the mid-1980s to early 1990s. These designs were never previously seen in the gallery and are therefore not “original” to it.’

She continues, ‘We understand that our visitors had become accustomed to these benches in the galleries and believe that they are original, but when the gallery first opened [in its Trafalgar Square location in 1838], it had no furniture. Later, there were chairs and various other styles of furniture, changing greatly over the years.’

For all the online stir around the new, minimal design choice versus the familiar favourites, it is a lack of accessibility in the new seating that concerns Kent, among others.

‘The old chairs were excellent for people with mobility issues or back pain because they had both arm and back rests, but the new ones are unusable. This is hostile furniture, it is designed to make you move on,’ she says. ‘Ironically, the rhetoric around museums today is all about accessibility, and yet the modern, international museum aesthetic of hard, uninviting spaces is so hostile to anyone with a disability or mobility issues.’

Several people responded to the points raised by Kent to share personal experiences of accessing museum spaces with disabilities and mobility impairments.

Responding to the concerns around accessibility, and referencing other examples of existing furniture within its spaces, The National Gallery stated: 'Issues existed around the previous furniture, such as many have no arms or backrests and so are less inclusive. Our new benches (which have already been in place for six months) complement our suite of 29 oak Sainsbury Wing benches.  The design approach was to take into consideration the scale and shape of the galleries.  It was decided that the new benches should be low-lying, arranged in quadrants in the larger gallery spaces, to preserve the long views across the galleries and not to impede the transversal viewing of the paintings.'

The aim is to provide optimal space for visitors to rest, contemplate, and take a moment to engage with the collection, enhancing the overall visitor experience.  Jones confirms that the gallery does have detailed photography and designs of the red leather benches in its archive, should it wish to have them remade in future. 

The National Gallery benches will be auctioned 13-14 October 2025 at Bellmans. bellmans.co.uk