British Museum Entrance

As the most visited UK attraction, the British Museum faces the complex challenge of welcoming over 6 million visitors annually. The proposal looks to improve the arrival sequence and entrance facilities for visitors to create a new public space on the museum forecourt, that delivers better access and boldly reimagines the museums relationship with the local streetscape and landscape.
In collaboration with Hayatsu Architects, we designed new forecourt landscapes and Visitor Welcome Pavilions for both the Great Russell Street and Montague Street that looked to unpack the contents and strengthen the connection between the museum and city. Inspired by the primitive forms of construction found at places such as Stone Henge and Lanyon Quoit, the New Visitor Welcome Pavilions utilises the universal language of primary architectural elements.
The pavilions are conceived to form part of this landscape in that they are able to be touched, smelled and observed up close, providing an immersive experience both ancient and modern. A triangular stone pillar faces the entrance gates on Great Russell Street as a cairn to guide visitors towards the Visitor Welcome Pavilion. Standing proudly at the corner of the new landscape promenade, rainwater from the green roof cascades down the sloped face of the stone with a gentle sound, appealing to the senses and creating ‘one solid immense mound, very pale, very sleek in the rain’, as Virgina Woolf once described the Museum itself.