Reading Room
The Reading Room stands at the heart of the Museum, in the
centre of the Great Court.
It has been known as a world famous
centre of learning since the nineteenth century when it opened and
was immediately hailed as one of the great sights of
London.
By the early 1850s the British Museum Library badly needed a
larger reading room. Antonio Panizzi, the Keeper of Printed Books
(1837-56), had the idea of building a round room in the central
courtyard of the Museum building, which up until then had been a
public garden.
With a design by Sydney Smirke (1798-1877), brother of Sir
Robert Smirke who built the main Museum building, work began in
1854. Three years later construction was complete.
Using cast iron, concrete, glass and the latest heating and
ventilation systems, it was a masterpiece of mid-nineteenth century
technology. The bookstacks surrounding it were also made of iron to
take the great weight of the books and protect them against fire.
In all they contained three miles (4.8 kilometres) of bookcases and
twenty-five miles (forty kilometres) of shelves.
It opened on 2 May 1857 and for more than 100 years the Reading
Room was a centre of learning. Those wanting to use it had to apply
in writing and be issued a reader’s ticket by the Principal
Librarian. Among those granted a ticket was, famously, Karl Marx,
Jacob Richter (or Lenin as he is better known) and novelists such
as Bram Stoker and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
In 1997 the books
were moved to a new purpose-built building in St Pancras, were they
formed the new British Library, and the bookstacks were taken down.
As part of the Great Court development the interior was carefully
restored. This process saw the papier mâché interior of the dome
repaired and the original blue, cream and gold colour scheme
reinstated.
When it reopened in 2000, the Reading Room was made available to
all Museum visitors for the first time. It housed a modern
information centre, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Centre, which
combined the best in modern technology with more traditional means
of accessing information in the Paul Hamlyn Library. Consisting of
25,000 books, catalogues and other printed material, the library
focussed on the world cultures represented in the Museum.
The Reading Room has now entered a new episode in its already
illustrious history and is a temporary home for major
exhibitions. Previous exhibitions held in the Reading Room
include:
The next exhibition will be Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler from 24
September 2009 until 24 January 2010.
During this period, many facilities usually available in the
Reading Room can be found in the Paul Hamlyn Library, located
through Room 2. The Reading Room will revert to its normal use in
October 2012.
Image: a photograph of the Reading Room
under construction. A photograph William Lake Price.