Architectural History of the Natural History Museum

This is the ground floor plan of the Natural History Museum.

It is clear that this plan and construction is symmetrical due to the similar structures of both sides of the building

History of the Museum

 The Natural History Museum in London is one of three major museums located on Exhibition Road in South Kensington (others are the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum and the main entrance of the MHN is from the Cromwell Road).

The construction of the building began in 1873 and completed in 1880 with a Roman-Byzantine style of architecture.  

The official opening took place in 1881 and according to tradition, the museum has free admission.
The museum houses some 40 million zoological and botanical objects, including bones of dinosaurs, various fossils (such as Archeopteryx) and a 30-meter-long skeleton of a blue whale and a mode (etc). 

The chosen site in South Kensington was previously occupied by the 1862 International Exhibition building, once described as ‘the ugliest building in London’. Ironically, it was the architect of that building, Captain Francis Fowke, who won the design competition for the new Natural History Museum.

However, in 1865  Fowke died suddenly and the contract was awarded instead to a rising young architect from Liverpool, Alfred Waterhouse.

Waterhouse altered Fowke’s design from Renaissance to German Romanesque, creating the beautiful Waterhouse Building we know today. By 1883 the mineralology and natural history collections were in their new home. But the collections were not finally declared a museum in their own right until 1963.

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