Camden News: Brian Sewell

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Camden News - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 24 July 2008

Brian Sewell

Hidden: historic Reading Room buried under blockbuster shows

We’ve lost an architectural gem, warns top art critic, as Museum closes library until 2012

A 2,000-year-old marble bust of Roman Emperor Hadrian stares at visitors flocking to the British Museum’s latest headline-grabbing exhibition.
But beneath his stony gaze, the museum is facing accusations that it cares more about paying customers than respecting the history of the Bloomsbury building.
Famous faces from the fields of art and architecture have warned that the museum’s world famous Round Reading Room has effectively been sacrificed to make way for exhibition space.
The exhibits on display may be awe-inspiring – but the museum has overlooked the majesty of its own building, critics have warned.
Art critic Brian Sewell said: “They have cut the public off from the one beautiful piece of architecture they own.”
The row has developed following a decision by Camden Council’s planners on Thursday night to allow the museum to keep in place false floors and walls that will cover up the Grade I-listed reading room until 2012.
Designed by Sidney Smirke in 1857 and based on Hadrian’s civic building in Rome, the Pantheon, it has been used by Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Gandhi, and George Orwell.
Mr Sewell added: “I suspect they have spent so much money on a temporary exhibition structure they need to continue to use it.
“The Reading Room itself should be a show within a show – it was inspired by Hadrian himself. But you can’t see it.
“We have lost an architectural gem. To say it will be out of action for another four years seems to be the beginning of the end. People will not have seen it for six years and it will be forgotten about – something I suspect the British Museum would be happy to happen.”
Architectural historian and BBC TV presenter Dan Cruickshank is also sceptical about the room’s future, and is calling for a public debate. He said: “So much public money has been spent on restoring it beautifully and it should be used for its original purpose.”
But the British Museum’s head spokeswoman, Hannah Boulton, said the Reading Room would one day return to its original form.
The museum is in the early stages of designing a £150million exhibition space where blockbusters can be staged. She said: “The room is in safe hands and we will not use it as a permanent exhibition space.”
However, the museum could not confirm how the room will be used once the four years are up.
The museum has been backed by poet laureate Andrew Motion. He said: “It would be wonderful to have the Smirke room back but the museum has put on wonderful exhibitions in the Reading Room. In an ideal world they will have somewhere else to do it but life is not like that.”

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