Great Court at the British Museum
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Nigel Young Download Original
Restoration of the British Museum's Reading Room and the creation of a dramatic glazed internal court
For many years, the British Museum’s Great Court was nothing more than a memory, choked as it was with a miscellaneous collection of storage buildings. At its centre, Sydney Smirke’s circular Reading Room was suffering from neglect, poor additions, and a torturous access route.
The architect's solution was to clear away the many accretions of the court, reopening it as a grand public forum at the heart of the museum. This vast space is top lit by an undulating glass roof, supported by the internal courtyard walls and by columns set within the Reading Room’s new skin of stone cladding.
At an urban level, the Great Court provides a pedestrian route through the building, inviting the public to use its spaces for more than serious study, but as a place to meet, relax, sit and enjoy. It also provides new connections between the museum’s galleries, allowing the visitor to move freely from one collection to another, rather than be drawn through endless linear galleries.
Data
- Begun: Apr 1998
- Completed: Nov 2000
- Floor area: 19,000m2
- Sector: Arts and culture
- Total cost: £100M
- Funding: Millenium Commission, Heritage Lottery
- Tender date: 1994
- Procurement: Construction Management
- Address: British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG, United Kingdom
Professional Team
- Architect: Foster + Partners
- Project architects: Giles Robinson, Michael Jones, Norman Foster, Spencer de Grey
- Client: Trustees of the British Museum
- Structural engineer: Fulcrum Consulting/ WW
- Fire consultant: FEDRA
- Quantity surveyor: Northcroft Nicholson
- Acoustics: Sandy Brown Associates
- Artificial Lighting Consultant: Claude Engle
- Facade engineer: Emmer Pfenninger Partner AG
- Historic building consultant: Giles Quarme Associates / Caroe and Partners / Ian Bristow
- Construction manager: Mace
- Project manager: British Museum
- M&E engineer: Fulcrum Consulting/ WW
Suppliers
- Reading room ceiling: Campbell Smith & Company