Christie's is going, going, gone

What will happen if Christie's moves to Somerset House?

One answer, at least, is that the dynamics of London's £3.3 billion international art trade will never be the same again. At a meeting at Christie's yesterday morning, the firm's chief executive, Edward Dolman, paved the way for such a move when he informed senior staff that the French-owned company had been exploring a number of options for the future of the London business, including consolidating the St James's and South Kensington salerooms into a single site.

While the options for that single site, he said, "include Somerset House, among others", other sources suggest the deal is all but done. The Somerset House Trust has announced that it "sees many advantages" in Christie's outline proposal to take over the Inland Revenue lease on the New and West wings of the building, and has asked the Revenue to consider an early surrender of its lease.

For Somerset House, of course, the arrival of one of the world's two top auction houses would be a tremendous boost. It would further the process of opening up Sir William Chambers's grand 18th century building to the public, as the trustees wish, and help develop it as a centre for culture and the arts. The auction house would join the Courtauld Institute of Art and its galleries, the Gilbert Collection of outstanding silver and works of art, and the recently opened Hermitage Rooms.

For Christie's, however, the proposed move represents a sea-change in company policy. In the past decade, the firm, under its former CEO Chris Davidge, had pursued a policy of separating the glamorous, high-profile and most profitable parts of its business from the more humble and workaday, with increasing numbers of departments dispatched from the St James's headquarters to the secondary rooms at South Kensington in recent years. This new announcement follows an extensive review of the firm's business and property requirements around the world - and last week's news that the New York operation is also consolidating into a single site, with the more affordable Christie's East saleroom moving into the Rockefeller Center by January

Anyone who has strolled into these premises - or any of those in London's West End - during the many months of the year when an international saleroom is "out of season" will appreciate that the big two auction houses have not been making the most cost-effective use of their costly premises.

Most of the year, they are as quiet as a morgue. A merger of premises will certainly ensure a consistent year-round buzz which cannot but be good for business and the balance sheet, and certainly the moves by both Sotheby's and Christie's to purpose-built premises in New York seem to have had the effect of regenerating their businesses. Christie's announcement is particularly interesting in the light of Sotheby's recent decision to do the reverse - move and develop its middle-market business by opening a sec-2002. ond London saleroom at Olympia. Perhaps the most serious consequence of the proposal, however, is that the relocation would remove Christie's from the hub of the commercial art world.

The area between Phillips and Sotheby's in Mayfair and Christie's in St James's is the heart, blood and guts of the London art trade. On the much-pounded arterial drag between these salerooms are the vast majority of London's leading dealers - dealers who not only consign the lion's share of auction-house business but buy a good deal of it too - and the business done between them depends on the relationships forged and the daily contact that is inevitable in this peculiar global art village. With Christie's at Somerset House, part of Sotheby's at Olympia and Phillips on the look-out for larger premises, the dynamics of this cosy but cut-throat business cannot but change.

How also will Christie's business be affected when well-heeled guests at the nearby Ritz, Stafford or Connaught hotels are no longer able just to drop by when they have a spare half-hour? Somerset House is further away from South Kensington's natural constituency of dealers and buyers - in the Fulham and King's Roads, Kensington and Portobello. Christie's will be in august company at Somerset House, but the same cannot be said of the infrastructure of the unglamorous Strand and Embankment. As one leading St James's dealer said of the proposed move: "This may be the silliest thing that Christie's will ever do - akin to the newspapers leaving Fleet Street and the proximity of the City and Westminster for Canary Wharf."

So will St James's die a lingering death without Christie's?

I doubt it. The dealers clustered around Sotheby's on Madison Avenue, after all, did not set up shop elsewhere or follow the saleroom when it moved to York Avenue. As for the block of St James's that Christie's currently occupies - and will continue to occupy for at least the next three years - it may well be developed by the company's French owner, M Fran?ois Pinault, and turned into the luxury hotel that has long been discussed for the site. Many people still believe it was the raison d'être for his well-over-the-odds £721 million purchase of Christie's back in 1998.

And at least for the Paris-based M Pinault, Somerset House will be just minutes from Waterloo and the Eurostar.