Natural History Museum

Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England (the others are the Science Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum). Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road. The museum is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public bodysponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy,Palaeontology and Zoology. The museum is a world-renowned centre of research, specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Darwin. The Natural History Museum Library contains extensive books, journals, manuscripts, and artwork collections linked to the work and research of the scientific departments. Access to the library is by appointment only.

Hundreds of exciting, interactive exhibits in one of London’s most beautiful landmark buildings. Highlights include the popular Dinosaurs gallery, Mammals with its unforgettable model blue whale and the spectacular Central Hall, home to the Museum’s iconic Diplodocus skeleton. Don’t miss the state-of-the-art Cocoon where, on a self-guided tour, you can see hundreds of fascinating specimens and look into laboratories where you can see scientists at work.

This name was formally acquired in 1992. It was formerly named 'British Museum (Natural History)' and commonly referred to as the "British Museum of Natural History", or now the "Natural History Museum of London".The Museum offers a wide-ranging programme of temporary exhibitions and events including chances to join experts, in the Darwin Centre’s high-tech Attenborough Studio, in topical discussions about science and nature.

Tate Modern

Tate Modern

Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group (together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives and Tate Online). It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year. It is based in the former Bankside Power Station, in the Bankside area of Central London. Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art.

TATE Modern is the United Kingdom’s national museum of modern art. TATE Modern opened in 2000 and fast became one of the most celebrated London attractions with art enthusiasts. There is no admission fee to the gallery, making it one of the most popular free attractions in London. The gallery is based at Bankside on the Thames’ southbank, just yards from the Shakespeare Globe Theatre.   

The galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in 1981. The building was converted by architects Herzog & de Meuron and contractors Carillion,after which it stood at 99m tall. The history of the site as well as information about the conversion was the basis for a 2008 documentary Architects Herzog and de Meuron: Alchemy of Building & Tate Modern.

  The southern third of the building was retained by the French power companyEDF Energy as an electrical substation (in 2006, the company released half of this holding).TATE Modern houses a wonderful range of modern art, dating from the year 1900 up to today. The gallery’s main areas are the following: ‘Material Gestures’, devoted to abstract works of the 1940s and '50s; ‘Poetry and Dream’, a celebration of surrealistic works; ‘Scale’, which examines the practice of using scale to alter perception; ‘Energy and Process’, which looks at artists’ fascination with transformation and natural forces, and focuses on 1960s sculptural pieces; and ‘States of Flux’, which is devoted to early 20th-century art movements, such as pop art. TATE Modern's permanent exhibitions include works by such iconic 20th-century figures as Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

The British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum in London dedicated to human history and culture. Its permanent collection, numbering some eight million works,is amongst the largest and most comprehensive in existence and originates from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.

The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries was largely a result of an expanding British colonial footprint and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1887. Some objects in the collection, most notably the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, are the objects of intense controversy and of calls for restitution to their countries of origin.

The world-famous British Museum exhibits the works of man from prehistoric to modern times from around the world. Highlights include the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures, and the mummies in the Ancient Egypt collection. Entry is free but special exhibitions require tickets.

'By the 1970s, there was an active programme of gallery refurbishments and an education service and publishing company had been established. Additional public facilities were provided in a series of building works. These included the Duveen Gallery, built to house the Parthenon Sculptures (1939/62).

In 1973 the library became part of a new organisation, the British Library. This organisation remained at the Museum until 1997, when the books left Bloomsbury for a new building at St Pancras.The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, built in the space vacated by the library, reflects the most recent public expansion at the Museum. At two acres, it is the largest covered public space in Europe. In the centre is the restored Reading Room, while around and beneath it new galleries and an education centre were built.