Sunday 21 October 2012

The British Museum

The drawing above is an exploded isometric drawing of the British Museum. The museum was established in 1573 hugely based on the collections of Sir Hans Sloane, a physician and scientist. The British Museum opened to the public in 1579. The building was designed and built by an architect name Robert Smirke. His brother, Sydney Smirke then added the Reading Room right in the middle of the Great Court.


Every book that was ever written was placed around the Reading Room, it was later moved into the British Library. In the 1990s a competition all over the world was held to re-design the British Museum. Norman Foster won and kept the original structure of the building and added a layer to it, and of course the glass roof that takes everyone's breath away as you walk in. They consulted a mathematician to calculate the glazing of the roof in order for an average weight of a person can stand on it without breaking the glass. 

This is a scale model of the Museum we have created using plywood, mdf and plaster. Long hours and hard effort was put in to this project and coming out with this result is overwhelming. We had no floor plans or measurements so we had to start off with an image and research in order to produce this. It is definitely the most beautiful architectural piece I have seen so far in my life. 

No comments:

Post a Comment