Níall McLaughlin
Architects

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PROGRESS

MARCH 2017

Below are some from the Natural History Museum site showing the scaffold ‘tunnel’ going up at the Museum. This is the framework required to lift, manipulate, and move the blue whale skull into position in a few weeks.

Though the main hall has had a sperm whale in it before, this was only around 15m long. In contrast, the blue whale, the largest known animal to have ever existed, is about 30m long once assembled.

Unfortunately, due to the various extensions and alterations to the Museum over time, the skull can only come in via the front doors. And – much like a very large, very heavy, very valuable sofa – it’s a case of squeezing it in at strange angles.

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

OCTOBER 2016

The competition winning design for major alterations to London’s Natural History Museum, by Niall McLaughlin Architects and Kim Wilkie Landscape Architect, has been given planning approval by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. We will create a new civic square at the junction of Exhibition Road and Cromwell Road, a new entrance from South Kensington Underground Station and a series of garden galleries, extending the life of the museum out into its grounds.

To read Dezeen’s feature on the project, click here.