Closed since June 2025, the architects’ Grade II* home is being opened up to its original fabric, with a café entrance, a permanent exhibition and improved events spaces planned for its return by 2028.
The Royal Institute of British Architects closed its Marylebone headquarters at 66 Portland Place to the public on 1 June 2025 for a refurbishment it expects to take about three years, and its chair, Jack Pringle, has named 2028 as the year the building returns, open to members and the public alike.
Wornum’s competition winner
The building was itself the product of a contest. George Grey Wornum won the competition for a new home once the institute had outgrown its first headquarters at 9 Conduit Street, and King George V opened it on 8 November 1934. It is steel-framed and clad in Portland stone, and the listing describes a Scandinavian-influenced Neo Classicism, restrained enough to respect the scale of the eighteenth-century street around it.
James Woodford made the bronze relief doors, flanked by free-standing carved monoliths, and B. Copnall the figured panels along Weymouth Street. Inside, the listing records an interior by Wornum and his wife with its fittings intact: a grand central staircase, engraved and frosted glass, and a galleried library. The building was listed at Grade II* on 14 September 1970.
What the works are uncovering
By Pringle’s account the building was in an advanced state of disrepair, its mechanical and electrical systems at the end of their life, with no wheelchair access to most levels or to any lavatory. The first months of closure have gone on opening up the fabric before the main construction begins.
In April 2026 the executive architects, Purcell, photographed the original pumice cement finish in Florence Hall. It had been concealed for years beneath layers of lining paper and paint. On the seventh floor, the wall of the original rooftop plant room turned out to be Flemish bond in a patchwork of common bricks.
A café for a front door
Westminster granted planning and listed building consent in June 2025 for a scheme by Benedetti Architects, whom RIBA has kept on as design guardians. The most visible change is a new level entrance on Weymouth Street, opening into a café with south-facing pavement tables and a full-length rack of models celebrating members’ work. The revolving doors come out of the Portland Place entrance, giving the building two step-free ways in.
In February 2026 RIBA appointed three studios for the visitor spaces. Gundry + Ducker will design the café. Its restaurant interiors include Forza Wine at the National Theatre and Toum in Mayfair. Nissen Richards Studio will design an exhibition running through the building, drawing on the RIBA Collections, and Alex Cochrane Architects the shop.
Florence Hall and the rooms for hire
Before it closed, most of the building was available for events. Florence Hall, the largest space, took up to 400 guests and could be combined with the RIBA Gallery for a reception. The Jarvis Hall is a raked auditorium of 284 seats with its own hospitality space, and the Wren Room, on the sixth floor, looks out across London. The whole building could be taken on exclusive hire.
The venue is paused for the works, and the plan promises improved events spaces without yet publishing capacities for them. Pringle wants 66 Portland Place to be the home of the debate, with a members’ room to work from, a café on the street and the collections on show throughout.