The Natural History Museum
'A kind of apotheosis of terracotta', the Natural History Museum has been open for a hundred years as a scientific institution to serve the huge lay audience who are knowledgeable about nature and eager to learn more. Robert Thorne reflects on how, in its centenary year, the museum's architectural perfection is under threat.
The Natural History Museum in South Kensington was first opened to the public a hundred years ago. To mark the centenary a special exhibition has been mounted in the museum's North Hall describing the evolution of its collections and the uses to which they are put, and a short book by Plark Girouard has been published entitled Alfred Waterhouse and the Natural History Museum (Yale University Press, 1981). As befits the occasion, the book is largely a celebration of the building, providing a lucid analysis of its design and justification of its importance in nineteenth-century architecture. It has, though, a slightly unreal air, for by stopping the narrative at the year the museum opened it gives no sense of the arguments that have subsequently affected its career, least of all the disputes about the building itself.
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