The British Museum’s vast and imposing Round Reading Room has reopened this week to all visitors after being closed for the past 11 years.
Designed by Sydney Smirke and opened in 1857, the reading room at the heart of the museum was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome and is considered one of London’s most impressive architectural wonders.
“Using cast iron, concrete, glass and the latest heating and ventilation systems, it was a masterpiece of mid-19th century technology,” the British Museum says on its website. When it opened, it contained 25 miles of shelving. Users had to apply for a ticket: among those who did so successfully were Karl Marx, Bram Stoker, and Arthur Conan Doyle.
In 1997 the books were moved to a new building, and the room was restored and opened to all visitors in 2000. It closed again in 2013 and has since been used for storage and the handling of the archives. Last year, the museum’s chairman George Osborne said the continued closure is “not acceptable,” and after that, weekly 20-minute tours were introduced. Now, members of the public can enter the space without a tour or a ticket.