Jones wants to make a clear, cloister-like run of spaces around a relandscaped central courtyard: so that’s the end of the Italianate Pirelli Garden of 1987, the final project of Sir Roy Strong’s 13-year reign as director, which caused a bit of a rumpus at the time. The ace caff (from the start of Elizabeth Esteve-Coll’s seven-year term) will move to its original Victorian position in rooms to the north of the courtyard, spilling out into it. Above all, Jones wants to reorganise all the displays into clearly identifiable “quarters”. He has already simplified the museum’s previously Byzantine curatorial structure into four departments rather than the previous nine, so making collaboration across specialisms inevitable, and formalized the “contemporary team” which draws on all disciplines.

And in a move that may well bring him into conflict with traditionalists, he has employed Britain’s jeweler of high-tech, the Czech-born architect Eva Jiricna, to redesign the crucial entrance sequence to the museum, from doors through to courtyard. This will entail removing the so-called “medieval treasury” which - kept in necessarily dim light - has presented something of a daunting introduction to the museum for the past 20 years and is another legacy of the Strong era. That will now form part of the new gallery sequence to the east of the entrance. There will very probably be howls of anguish from some quarters over this. Jones, however, is keeping his eye on the total picture. “I believe that opening up the circulation routes, added to all the other things, will make the museum come alive - so you won’t get this feeling of finding yourself in a neglected corner,” he says.