Natural History Museum, London, Opened (1881)

Yes, the official opening date of the Natural History Museum in London was April 18, 1881, when the iconic building it still occupies saw its first visitors.  But the exhibits in the museum have a history that starts considerably before the official opening.

The famed British Museum opened in 1753 when the eclectic collections of Sir Hans Sloane were transferred to the British government upon his death.  Sloane’s collection included a little more than 70,000 items, from architectural remnants to fossils to biological specimens.  It was a broad and idiosyncratic compilation, but suited well to the appetites of curious aristocrats at the time.

But as time went on and the British Museum’s collections grew in scope and scientific value, space became tight and an organizing rationale was needed.  In 1856, Richard Owen, a renowned paleontologist, signed on to curate the natural history portion of the museum.  He quickly convinced the directors that a separate natural history building would relieve the space crunch and provide a proper status for exploring the natural world.

A few years later, architect Alfred Waterhouse took up the project, designing the building that became the Natural History Museum.  When the new museum opened on April 18, 1881, it was an architectural and exhibition masterpiece.  The sprawling building is covered in terra cotta tiles, used because they were resistant to the harsh air quality of Victorian London.  The Romanesque structure dominates the landscape, with blocky spires at the corners and a soaring central tower.  Waterhouse designed “a cathedral for nature,” as revealed by the interior.  The central hall rises to a dizzying height, with walls of windows at the ends that resemble those of a church nave.  Arched galleries like chapels line the side walls, topped by a higher floor of more intricate three-arched openings.  At the end of the building, where an altar or statue of Jesus would adorn a cathedral, a broad staircase rises to an out-sized alabaster statue of Charles Darwin.

But then come the natural history details.  The columns that border doorways to adjacent hallways are sculpted to resemble the main stems of both living and fossil plants. The columns are inhabited with climbing monkeys, perching birds, crouching frogs  and trailing flowers.  The ceiling is covered with tiles showing 162 plants representing the world’s flora—many of which were imported to England through the great voyages of exploration of that time.