ABSTRACT
A 1960’s plan to move the Library to other accommodation unleashed a new potential, fi nally enabling the central court to be rediscovered and reinvented – this time paved and covered, conceived as an indoor public space that simultaneously, provided a radical re-organisation of the Museum’s circulation. However, none of this would have been possible without the Library moving out to St. Pancras (see British Library). By reinventing the Court as a covered, indoor space protected by a unique, domed glass roof, Foster’s design returns this central area to public use, provides new facilities, reveals and opens the Reading Room, and entirely reforms the Museum’s circulation.
