Round Reading Room
The conservation repair and environmental renewal of the Round Reading Room’s roofs, recovering its original ventilation strategy and protecting the interior for long-term public use.
The Round Reading Room is one of the defining interiors of Victorian Britain. Raised panels, gilded mouldings and diffuse light from the dome above have shaped the experience of readers for over 160 years. Darwin, Dickens, Marx and Woolf all came here to think and write.
The building was as technically ambitious as it was beautiful. Spanned in wrought and cast iron, its original ventilation system drew fresh air up through vaulted brick tunnels under the floor and out through desks to the lantern above, an act of environmental ingenuity well ahead of its time. By the turn of this century, that system had fallen dormant.
Nex is renewing three roofs that have reached the end of their serviceable life: the lower roof encircling the dome, the copper dome itself and the lantern at its crown. The lower roof will be replaced in full, improving the building’s thermal envelope. The copper dome is being carefully repaired. The lantern glazing, the most complex element, is being replaced entirely, with a new design that sheds water by geometry alone. Post-war glazing will be replaced with glass and framing matched to the original profiles, and the dormant ventilation system is being renewed using discreet automated controls. The original ventilation grilles in the readers' desks at floor level will be upgraded, restoring and enhancing the stack-effect strategy Sydney Smirke had originally devised.
The work is being carried out within the glazed enclosure of the Great Court with the surrounding museum open to the public, requiring precise coordination and careful sequencing at every stage. The completed building will emerge renewed: warmer, better protected and more sustainable, with one of London’s most-loved rooms ready for the public once again.
