British Museum Reading Room

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Building Information
British Museum Reading Room
A panorama showing an almost 180-degree view of the interior of the Reading Room
Name	British Museum Reading Room
Location	London
Country	England, United Kingdom
Architect	Sydney Smirke
Completion Date	1857

The British Museum Reading Room, situated in the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum, used to be the main reading room of the British Library. This function has now been moved to the new British Library building at St Pancras, London, but the Reading Room remains in its original form.

Designed by Sydney Smirke on a suggestion by the Library's Chief Librarian Anthony Panizzi, following an earlier competition idea by William Hosking, the Reading Room was in continual use from 1857 until its closure in 1997. The Reading Room's dome roof is metal framed, and the surface that makes up the ceiling is a type of papier mache. Access was restricted to registered researchers only; however, reader's credentials were generally available to anyone who could show that they were a serious researcher.

The Reading Room was used by a large number of famous figures, including notably Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Mohandas Gandhi, Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, Vladimir Lenin and H. G. Wells. Following the move to the new site, the old Reading Room was opened to the public in 2000, following a renovation by noted architect Norman Foster. It contains a collection of books on history, art, travel, and other subjects relevant to the British Museum's collections, on open shelves.

In 2006 the British Museum announced it planned to modify the Reading Room to house a temporary exhibition of Chinese art. This will involve building a new floor above the existing reading desks.

[edit] References in art and popular culture

The British Museum Reading Room has become iconic. It is the subject of an eponymous poem, The British Museum Reading Room, by Louis MacNeice. Much of the action of David Lodge's 1965 novel The British Museum Is Falling Down takes place in the old Reading Room. In the 2001 Japanese anime OVA Read or Die, the Reading Room is used as the secret entrance to the British Library's fictional "Special Operations Division." Alfred Hitchcock used the Reading Room and the dome of the British Museum as a location for the climax of his first sound film Blackmail (1929).