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View of the Great Court.

The central quadrangle of the British Museum in London was redeveloped to become the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, commonly referred to simply as the Great Court, during the late 1990s. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000. The court has a tessellated glass roof by Foster and Partners (Architects) and Buro Happold (Engineers) covering the entire court and surrounds the original circular British Museum Reading Room in the centre, now a museum. It is the largest covered square in Europe. The glass and steel roof is made up of 1,656 pairs of glass windowpanes; each of a unique shape because of the undulating nature of the roof.

Controversially, some of the stone in the court is from France, rather than being Portland Stone from southern England as agreed in the original contract with the masons.

Within the Great Court, there are shops and a café. It is deliberately open for longer that the British Museum itself. The court acts as a centrally linking point for the museum, somewhat like the Pyramid at the Louvre in Paris.

Upon the Great Court's opening to the public in 2000 twelve sculptures from the British Museum's collection were installed on the main floor of the concourse:

• A stela of the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II (9th century BC)
• A marble lion from Knidos, Asia Minor (3rd century BC)
• Two heads of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (circa 1400 BC)
• Two obelisks of the Egyptian King Nectanebo II (circa 350 BC)
• Hoa Hakananai'a, a statue from Easter Island (1st century AD)
• A Roman equestrian statue (2nd century AD)
• An Irish memorial slab carved in Ogham script (5th century AD)
• An Anglo-Saxon cross shaft (late 8th/early 9th century AD)
• A pair of Chinese guardian figures (17th century AD)

There were initial plans for a new, thirteenth sculpture to be commissioned from Anish Kapoor, but these were scrapped.

East Portico of Sir Robert Smirke's building; Roman equestrian statue visible in the foreground

Hoa Hakananai'a

• Thin-shell structure

• Great Court, British Museum including 360° panorama

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