History & Architecture of the NHM

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Natural History Museum in London, my third chance to see the collections within and still not enough time to appreciate everything they had to offer.

The day started well, with a damp, miserable looking day and a queue that curved down to the main courtyard before zigzagging through a set of barriers and heading out the main gate and for a fair way along Cromwell Street.

But it did give us time to study the marvellous architecture of Alfred Waterhouse, who won the architectural contract after the death of the original intended designer, Capt.. Francis Fowke. Waterhouse’s creation was heavily Romanesque, a style of architecture that was popular throughout Europe between the 10th and 12th centuries.

The NHM first opened its doors to the public on Easter Monday 1881. it was built to house an increasingly large natural history collection in the British Museum, seeded by a generous donation from Sir Hans Sloane in 1753.

But it was the superintendent of that collection, Sir Richard Owen, who convinced the British Government to build a museum of Natural History. Curiously, Owen, whose historical character seems torn between brilliance and notoriety, planned to display the collections in related species groups, but formed vehement opposition to the both evolution and natural selection as proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859. In a further ironic twist, a statue of Darwin currently occupies the place where Owen’s traditionally stands, overlooking the main hall, as part of the Darwin 200 celebrations at the NHM.

The inscription reads:

Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follows from the advance of science

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)

But back to the architecture – The building itself is large and imposing with entrance and windows surrounded by worked columns and stone animals.

The attention to architectural details is incredible and although my camera isn’t the best, I took some closer pictures of it’s beautiful stonework. Waterhouse made over 200 sketches upon which the sculptures around he museum are based.

Which continued inside:

These sculptures are terracotta, an enduring clay material used throughout history in sculpting, and later as a building material, although it’s use declined during the Middle Ages. Terracotta is useful both to produce sculptures on and protect buildings, and glazing only increases its durability. On of the most famous uses of terracotta is its use of The Terracotta Army, thousands of life-size sculptures of warriors discovered guarding the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang di who lived over 2000 years ago.

In 1985, the Geological Museum merged with the NHM and now houses the ‘Red Zone’, where you can find geological information and artefacts. It shares architectural features with the Science Museum and was designed by the same people.

A more recent addition to the NHM is the new Darwin Centre, a state-of-the-art storage facility for the Museum’s fragile collections, incorporating terracotta into its design, a link with the NHM’s architectural past, and modern laboratories to take it’s work into the future.

You can find more in-depth information about the history and design of the Waterhouse building on the Natural History Museum’s own website.