Glass Ceiling

-- Interior Design, 12/1/2000

On December 7th, London's British Museum unveiled the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, a glorious two-acre inner courtyard with a 65,000-sq.-ft. glass and steel roof designed by Foster and Partners. The Great Court includes a new education center, galleries, lecture and seminar rooms, and improved visitor services, as well as the restored round reading room. "The Great Court is a remarkable architectural tour-de-force," says R.G.W. Anderson, the museum's director. "Norman Foster has elegantly blended his unique brand of contemporary architecture with Sir Robert Smirke's 19th-century neo-Grecian building. The result is a magnificent building-within-a-building that, in one stroke, brings solutions to many of the museum's 21st-century needs."