There is one final move the architects want to make. Now that the north side of Trafalgar Square is free of traffic, they argue, why not give the National Gallery a full-scale flight of steps descending to the new piazza, and thence down to the Square? At present there are two congested side staircases rising to the main entrance. They have designed the steps to fan out from the base of the portico into the piazza. If built, they would become on of London's most popular lunchtime meeting-places.

Commentary, added 3rd November 2002:

Dixon and Jones excel at this kind of keyhole-surgery work, much more so than in wholly new buildings (consider the deficiencies of their recent Said Business School in Oxford, a wholly internalized building that is unfortunately seen on all four sides and which contributes nothing but blank walls, fire escape doors and service bays to the life of the street). The fact that they previously did so well at the National Portrait Gallery under Saumarez-Smith is a happy coincidence, since it was the National Gallery's previous director Neil MacGregor who appointed them to draw up the new masterplan.

Their incredibly complex work at the Royal Opera House and their subtle interventions at the Georgian palace of Somerset House show a keen awareness of context and history, coupled with a modern sensibility. Back in the 1980s when this pair were in the forefront of British postmodernism, it was a particularly cerebral, allusive form of postmodernism, more attuned to European colleagues such as Aldo Rossi than its brash American-commercial equivalent. But for years now - in fact, ever since their Henry Moore Institute of 1988-93 in Leeds - they have been back in the modernist fold.