Sanskrit Library

This quiet, top-lit room, east of the Enlightenment Gallery, is the surviving section of the museum’s original Long Room library. Nex is enhancing the room's environment, including protection for the collection and archive, lowering energy in-use as part of the museum's wider decarbonisation, and improving comfort for the staff who work beneath its lanterns.

Nex undertook archival research and physical investigation to establish which elements were historic and which were later additions. This distinction determined what could be replaced and what should remain. The soldering details of the copper covering dated it to after the Second World War and identified the firm that had made it, confirming that neither the covering nor the lanterns were original fabric and opening the way for their renewal without loss of historic material. The existing structural timber and cast iron roof construction is sound and retained. A cold, ventilated, insulated roof improves thermal performance without raising the roof level, protecting the Enlightenment Gallery windows and keeping the intervention reversible.

The non-original copper covering is renewed in traditional batten-rolled copper, and all fifteen lanterns are replaced with double-glazed units in slim scalloped frames. Automated windows integrated into the new lanterns improve natural ventilation to the spaces below. Together, the fabric improvements will deliver a 57 per cent reduction in heat loss, cutting the energy the room needs and keeping its conditions steadier for the collection.

Inside, Nex is repairing historic walls and lath-and-plaster ceilings using traditional lime-based materials, with all disturbed fabric documented, removed and reinstated wherever possible. The work reaches beyond the library itself: at the north end, Panizzi's original office will become comfortable year-round while keeping its historic character.