walk/tour
Sydney Smirke, 1854
British Museum (Montague Place entrance), Great Russell Street
Bloomsbury holds the densest concentration of museums, universities, and libraries in London, housing an array of objects and spaces for teaching and research. These institutions' architecture has structured knowledge and shaped scholars’ experience over two and a half centuries – forming a built record of the values associated with learning from the Enlightenment to today's entrepreneurial knowledge economy.
Goodge Street, Holborn, Russell Square
Euston, King's Cross
1, 14, 168, 24, 29, 390, 73, 91
Start: In front of the World Conservation Centre, to the right of the Montague Pl. entrance to the British Museum. End: British Library
This walk walk can be taken entirely step-free, and there will be points where it is possible to sit.
The walk will pass through some areas that are likely to be noisy and crowded, and light-levels will be varied throughout.
Walking tour
14:00–16:00
This guided walking tour will take participants on journey through 250 years of knowledge production in Bloomsbury.
How to book
Please create a free visitor account to book your festival tickets.
This tour will take us around some of Bloomsbury’s most notable museum, library and university buildings, including the British Museum, Senate House, the Warburg Institute, and the British Library. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which architects and planners have attempted to reconcile the need for the continual adaptation of these iconic spaces to new technologies, models of learning, and standards of accessibility with the historic fabric and intellectual heritage of the area. Architects and practices discussed will include Sir Robert Smirke; Charles Holden; Denys Lasdun; Colin St John Wilson and M.J. Long; Foster + Partners; and Haworth Tompkins.
Come take a walk through 250 fifty years of collecting, scholarship and knowledge production. Starting in the mid-18th century, the district of Bloomsbury, stretching from New Oxford Street to Euston Road, has developed between museums, libraries and institutions of higher and further education – housing an astonishingly diverse range of objects, resources and specialized spaces for teaching and research. Their architecture reflects the values and aspirations associated with institutional scholarship in the centuries during which London has become a major centre of learning: from the High Imperial hellenism of Smirke’s British Museum, and the modernizing ambitions of Holden’s and Lasdun’s unfinished attempts to interject an architecturally unified campus into Bloomsbury’s Georgian squares, to the investment-driven regeneration of the contemporary ‘Knowledge Quarter’ around the Euston Road.
The precise starting point for this tour will be the Montague Place entrance to the British Museum. Participants will pass through security checks at least twice – please note the guideline and restrictions for visitors here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/visit#entering-the-museum – but also note that you will not need to individually pre-book your entrance to the museum. Be prepared for both in-door and outdoor environments. This walk can be undertaken step-free, and there will be accessible toilets and some seating available enroute.
This tour is led by a participant of Open City’s Golden Key Academy – a course training up insightful and engaging guides dedicated to explaining London and bringing its many stories to life. It is part of a wider collection of tours created by Golden Key Academy guides for the Open House Festival celebrating their conclusion of the eight month course. Further information on the Golden Key Academy can be found here https://open-city.org.uk/golden-key-academy
Drop in / Guided tour
community/cultural, historical house, concert/performance space, event
The independent cultural centre Pushkin House will contribute to this year's Open House Festival through a programme of events and community initiatives at its Grade-II listed building in Bloomsbury Square.
Henry Flitcroft, 1744
Drop in / Guided tour
community/cultural, library, museum, art in the public realm, concert/performance space, education
Grade II-listed Georgian domestic building c.1760, formerly part of Bedford Estate. Interior refurbished 1925 to form lecture hall (restored 2014), library, bookshop and offices. Oak woodwork and green Doulton tiles line the staircase.
Unknown, 1760
