Tags
Ancient Egypt, architecture, Attractions, culture, Foster and Partners, free attractions, free museums, Greek Revival, history, London attractions, London museums, museums, The British Museum
Last weekend I was up in London and decided to make a trip to the British Museum, which, shockingly, I have never visited before! Or at least not since I was old enough to remember… It’s been on my list (along with Buckingham Palace and The Houses of Parliament which I still have yet to visit) for far too long and I felt it was finally time to tick it off.
Now The British Museum is a building I studied at university for my (unfortunately never completed) architecture degree. However, this was from the safety of my laptop, so it was fascinating to finally see it in the flesh. As you walk up to the entrance you’re met by the wonderful Greek Revival façade, designed by Sir Robert Smirke in 1823, with its vast steps, intricately carved pediment and Ionic colonnade (Ionic columns are the ones with the scrolls at the top, think ‘eye’onic – the circles look like eyes). And if this isn’t a grand enough entrance as it is, once you enter the museum and make your way to The Great Court your breath is taken away by Foster and Partners’ beautiful undulating steel and glass roof, that is if you can call it a roof – roofs make me think of wooden rafters and shingles, while Foster’s creation feels more like a weightless canopy of glass hovering above the heavy stone galleries and circular Reading Room beneath.
But enough about the architecture. The British Museum holds a staggering number of artefacts, covering the entire history of the world, from every continent, every culture and every era, and so as I only had an hour I decided to limit myself to the Ancient Egyptian exhibitions, and even then I could have stayed so much longer! The collection is really quite incredible, ranging from colossal statues of pharaohs and gods from ancient temples, vast stone walls covered in hieroglyphs (though stupidly I forgot to visit the most famous of these, the Rosetta Stone, which apparently is in Room 4), and, of course, the mummies. Considering it was the day after Halloween it felt quite appropriate to hover inches away from mummified human remains thousands of years old. I was just as enthralled as the various groups of children surrounding me as we all stood peering into the sarcophagi, with that odd feeling that at any moment one of them might suddenly lurch back to life…
All in all, I really enjoyed the visit and will definitely be returning (a fair few more times no doubt) to make my way through the other collections, and to find the Rosetta Stone of course! There’s also a big extension underway which I believe opens next year, so I will certainly be back to visit that!
Fact Box:
Museum of: human history and culture
Location: Russell Street, London
Cost: free
Opened in: 1759
6 million visitors per year
8 million works