Project aiming to reduce lengthy queues on streets surrounding the museum’s Bloomsbury building
The British Museum has submitted plans by Studio Weave for an overhaul of its north and south entrances.
The Visitor Welcome Project aims to “dramatically improve” the arrival experience for 6.5 million people who visit the museum each year by reducing the pressure of queues on surrounding pavements.
The scheme, which is being supported by a £10.3 million pledge from the Garfield Weston Foundation, will create a richly planted public realm space on the south forecourt and pavilions designed by Studio Weave with garden designer Tom Massey Studio.
It will also remodel the museum’s north entrance to better integrate it with Montague Place, with the two interventions aiming to create a smoother flow of visitors to avoid lengthy queues on the streets around the Bloomsbury building.
Other firms working on the project include Wright & Wright Architects, Alan Baxter Heritage Consultants, AECOM and Daisy Froud.
British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan said: “As the most visited building in the UK, and one of the top three most visited museums in the world, first impressions count.
“With the visitor welcome pavilions, we’re striving to create the most inspiring greeting possible for the 6.5 million people (and counting) from across the nation and around the world who come through our doors each year – whether it’s their first visit or fifteenth, aged five or 95.”
Studio Weave founding director Je Ahn said the practice sees its role on the project as “helping the public navigate between the everyday world and the museum where they encounter stories of other worlds”.
Ahn added: “The new landscape and pavilions draw on ideas of commonality and curiosity – they are populated by plants, objects, materials and commissions that bring historical storytelling into the public space, softening the hard boundary between the museum and its surroundings.”
The Studio Weave team was selected last year from a competition shortlist which included Publica, Periscope and East Architecture.
In February this year, Lina Ghotmeh was announced as the winner of a competition to redesign a third of the museum’s galleries, including the space which houses the controversial Elgin Marbles.
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