The Reading Room and Great Court of the British Museum, London

The Reading Room and Great Court of the British Museum, London

The 25,000 books within the Reading Room all relate to the collection of the British Museum. After the British Library relocated in 1997, the Museum took over this space, restored and restocked it with its own library. Along with that work, the British Museum also commissioned from architect Sir Norman Foster the tessellated glass roof over the Great Court. For more than a century, the Great Court was open to the elements.