2-798-984 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Façade of the new British Museum, 1845. The newly extended building in Bloomsbury, London. 'The design of the New British Museum...has certainly not been spared by the architectural critic of the "Companion to the Almanac for 1846"," who writes thus:- "The British Museum is progressing slowly, but quietly. Although two or three years more may elapse before the whole facade is complete, unless it be proceeded with more expeditiously than hitherto, we can now very plainly perceive, from what is done, the entire design and its character...the architecture is bare and cold, and has an unfinished air. At the best, the merit of the design is quite of a negative kind, as it consists entirely of colonnading, and nothing more...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.