031 Roof of the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, British Museum

Roof of the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, British Museum

 

In 1846 Robert Smirke was replaced as the museum's architect by his brother Sydney Smirke, whose major addition was the Round Reading Room 1854–1857; at 140 feet (43 m) in diameter it was then the second widest dome in the world, the Pantheon in Rome being slightly wider. The Reading Room closed in 1997 when the national library (the British Library) moved to a new building at St Pancras. With the bookstacks in the central courtyard of the museum empty, the demolition for Lord Foster's glass-roofed Great Court could begin

 

The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court is a covered square at the centre of the British Museum designed by the engineers Buro Happold and the architects Foster and Partner. The Great Court opened in December 2000 and is the largest covered square in Europe. The roof is a glass and steel construction, built by an Austrian steelwork company ith 1,656 uniquely shaped panes of glass.

 

Many thanks for a fantabulous

49,346,958 views

 

Shot 05.03.2016 at the British Museum REF 115-031

 

 

Done