- A-Z
- JESELL : Jena Elect...
- 2012 (2013)
- Constructing Archae...
- Autor(in)
- Seitenbereich
-
001 - 016
- Zusammenfsg.
-
This essay traces the appropriation and multifaceted transformation of archaeological knowledge in the British Museum's exterior architecture, designed by Sir Robert Smirke (1823-46), by relating it to an eighteenth-century travel publication entitled Ionian Antiquities (1769). When seen in the context of early archaeological travel practices, it becomes evident that the incorporation of knowledge of antiquities in the British Museum is far from a simple reproduction of architectural patterns provided by a previous publication. This paper proposes that the selection of elements thought of as 'Grecian' and their re-contextualisation in this public building is based on a complex process of knowledge formation, which turns the British Museum into an architectural signifier open to interpretation.