The British Museum

Year of original building
1753
Location
London
Completion date
In progress
Client
The British Museum

Wright & Wright have supported the British Museum on a range of projects, addressing both strategic planning and the more immediate issues of fabric repair and management of its Grade I listed buildings in Bloomsbury.

Overview

Since 2018, Wright & Wright have supported the British Museum on a range of projects, addressing both strategic planning and the more immediate issues of fabric repair and management of its historic buildings.

Revitalising existing structures and sensitively incorporating new elements enables the Museum to address the challenges of the future as a world-class institution. Such programmes of works are made more logistically complex by the need for the Museum to remain open at all times, maintaining operational activity for visitors and staff, while safeguarding its unique collection and array of historic buildings.

As part of its ongoing working partnership, Wright & Wright were re-appointed to the Museum framework in 2021.

The Collection

The British Museum tells the story of two million years of human life, from prehistory to the present. Established in 1753, the British Museum was founded as the first truly public institution of its kind in the world. Today, it remains a Museum for the global public, welcoming around six million visitors annually to its incomparable collections free of charge, and engaging millions in-person and online with educational exhibitions and programmes.

Side view of a sculpture of Amenhotep III on a pedestal in the galleries of Ancient Egyptian Art at the British Museum

Limestone Statue of Amenhotep III, The British Museum

A Cultural Destination

Founded in 1753, with 8 million objects in its permanent collection, it is the arguably world’s greatest assemblage of human art and artefacts, welcoming around 6 million visitors annually, making it most visited cultural attraction in the UK.

Frontal view of a marble bust of the Emperor Hadrian from Ancient Rome in the galleries of the British Museum

Marble Bust of the Emperor Hadrian, The British Museum

The Building

As a focus of national cultural life, the Museum is a constantly evolving organism, responding to the challenges and ambitions of different eras. Its collection of listed buildings in Central London underpins its core activities of curation, care and display of objects that it holds in trust for the world. It is a complex aggregation of architecture from many different periods, in a perpetual state of flux: the processes of building work, repair and reordering of the collection has been more or less continuous since the Museum’s founding.