The British Museum was founded in 1753 and opened its doors in 1759. It was the first national museum to cover all fields of human knowledge. History · Collecting histories · Architecture · Contested objects

Its foundations lie in the will of the Anglo-Irish physician and naturalist Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), a London-based doctor and scientist from Ulster. British Museum (disambiguation) · British Museum Act 1753 · Benin Bronzes · Tabot

The museum's collections were first housed in a 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, which was extensively refurbished before it opened to the public in 1759.

In June 1754, Montagu House was selected as the building that would become the British Museum, after the Palace of Westminster and Buckingham Palace were ...

The museum's present building, designed in the Greek Revival style by Sir Robert Smirke, was built on the site of Montagu House in the period 1823–52 and has ...

Many ancient Greek temples were constructed of solid blocks of marble or limestone cut by hand, but the British Museum is built with brick faced with huge slabs ...

The commission for the new building was given to Robert Smirke, a well-established neoclassical architect. The building took around thirty years to complete, ...

11 нояб. 2021 г. · The core of the building was designed by the architect Sir Robert Smirke in 1823. It was designed as a quadrangle with four wings, in the Greek Revival style. Introduction · Quadrangle · Reading Room

30 окт. 2017 г. · A new book explores the little-known life and career of Hans Sloane, whose collections led to the founding of the British Museum.