The British Museum and its vast courtyard under glass

The British Museum in London is one of the great encyclopaedic museums of the world, housed in a neoclassical complex that frames a vast covered courtyard at its centre. Founded in 1753 as a public institution for scholarship and curiosity, it has developed into a museum of global history and culture while remaining rooted in its Bloomsbury site.

From Hans Sloane’s collections to a national museum

The story of The British Museum begins with the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish physician and naturalist whose lifetime assemblage of books, manuscripts, specimens and antiquities was bequeathed to the British nation in the mid-eighteenth century.Hans Sloane’s bequest was accepted by King George II, and an Act of Parliament in 1753 created a public museum that was unusual for its time in its ambition and openness.The museum was founded in 1753 and opened to visitors in 1759 in Montagu House, a seventeenth-century mansion standing on what is now the museum’s site.

During the nineteenth century the original house gave way to a much larger structure in the Greek Revival style, designed by Sir Robert Smirke and built between the 1820s and 1850s on Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury.Smirke’s Greek Revival design established the long colonnaded frontage and monumental portico that visitors recognise today. Inside, successive generations of curators and architects expanded the galleries as the holdings grew into a collection now counted in the millions of objects spanning around two million years of human history.The collections extend over two million years

Architecture and layout: classical façades, modern interventions

From Great Russell Street the museum presents a long classical façade with Ionic columns and pedimented portico, announcing its nineteenth-century ambition in stone. Behind this front elevation the plan arranges galleries around courtyards and passages, with the famous circular Reading Room at the centre of the main quadrangle. The building’s core parts retain Smirke’s stone construction and restrained ornament, and the layout reflects a period when grand staircases and enfilades were central to museum design.The Bloomsbury site and Greek Revival style

Inside, later additions introduced distinct architectural episodes. The King’s Library, which now houses the Enlightenment Gallery, was created in the early nineteenth century to accommodate the books of King George III, forming a long, high room lined with shelving that showcases the intellectual climate of that era.The King’s Library and Enlightenment Gallery Towards the turn of the twenty-first century, the museum undertook one of its most striking architectural transformations by covering the central courtyard with a glass and steel roof and turning the open space into what is now known as the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court.

The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court under glass

The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court occupies the central quadrangle of The British Museum, wrapping around the circular drum of the former Reading Room and tying together the main wings with a continuous paved square. Redeveloped in the late 1990s to a design by Foster + Partners and opened in 2000, it is described as the largest covered square in Europe and is defined by its expansive glazed canopy.The Great Court was opened in 2000 The roof has a tessellated structure whose glass panels follow an undulating form, spanning between the circular Reading Room and the surrounding buildings to create a single interior space regarded as a major London sight.The Great Court glass roof and Reading Room

The Great Court’s canopy was engineered by Buro Happold and built by Waagner-Biro, using thousands of glass panels and steel components to cover an area measured in several thousand square metres while maintaining daylight and views of the sky.The tessellated glass roof Around the paved floor, the court connects entrances to galleries, shops and information points, and it provides space for sculptures from different cultures that introduce visitors to the collections beyond. The covered square turns what was once a closed courtyard into a central gathering place framed by classical architecture and contemporary engineering.

Visiting The British Museum: what travellers from Western Europe should know

• The British Museum stands on Great Russell Street in the Bloomsbury district of central London, a short walk from Tottenham Court Road and Holborn Underground stations.
• The museum’s approach from Great Russell Street involves broad external steps leading to the main portico, and inside, level floors and staircases connect the wings and the Great Court.
• The surrounding area of Bloomsbury includes the University of London campuses and several other cultural institutions, so the museum sits within a neighbourhood strongly shaped by education and research.

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Frequently asked questions about The British Museum

Where is The British Museum located in London?

The British Museum is situated on Great Russell Street in the Bloomsbury district of central London, within the borough of Camden.

What can visitors expect inside The British Museum?

Visitors encounter a wide-ranging collection covering around two million years of human history, set within neoclassical galleries and centred on the covered Queen Elizabeth II Great Court.

What makes The British Museum distinctive among museums?

The British Museum combines an eighteenth-century foundation, a nineteenth-century Greek Revival building and a vast modern glass-roofed courtyard, creating a layered architectural and cultural ensemble.