Face Lift for an Aging Grande Dame

An unapologetically grand institution, the British Museum could claim to be a country in itself. Like the Vatican, it is almost a mini-nation, one that offers a tour of some of the world’s greatest sights and achievements in a single shot, has 2 1/2 centuries of market research to recommend it, and requires neither money nor passport.

The museum offers an unrivaled grandstand tour of global culture ancient and modern, from Greece and Rome to Korea and Japan by way of North America and medieval Europe to Africa and Egypt. And with more than 5.5 million visitors a year, it certainly boasts a healthier tourist trade than many countries.

But the museum is definitely a place with an address, nestled massive and imposing amid the narrow, quaint streets of the Bloomsbury district. And next year it will celebrate its 250th anniversary.

I had not visited the museum since I was a child in London, so, after hearing about the magnificence of the new Great Court--designed by acclaimed English architect Norman Foster and built to celebrate the new millennium--I chose a typically overcast London afternoon for a return visit.

If you’re coming off traffic-cramped and tourist-laden Great Russell Street, it’s impossible not to be impressed by the huge forecourt, with stone steps leading up to rows of classical columns. The majesty of the entrance, designed in 1823 by Robert Smirke, almost guarantees something special waiting within.

The entrance hall, with its high ceilings, massive stone stairway on the left and newly repainted but muted classical decoration, is gloomy and overbearing. But pass through quickly to the crowning glory of the museum, opened by Queen Elizabeth II two years ago. You’ll be stopped in your tracks. Like a kind of secret city, the Great Court has sprung up inside the familiar gray exterior of the museum and has transformed it from the inside.

It’s Europe’s largest covered public square, comprising two acres of marble floors and white Portland stone walls. Before, the courtyard was open to the sky and housed a bleak maze of storage rooms and book depositories for the British Library. The library, with its circular Reading Room, had been an integral part of the museum until most of its books were moved in 1998 to a new building nearby on Euston Road, leaving the Reading Room in splendid isolation. It dominates the Great Court, which encompasses it.

The Reading Room’s magnificence--its soaring arched windows, the yellow, white and gold leaf rotunda--made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Its sheer scale and height, the thousands of remaining books and its churchlike quietness made me feel more intelligent just by standing in it. It’s as if somebody cut the dome off the U.S. Capitol, placed it on the ground and built a library inside it.

The place where Karl Marx came to write “Das Kapital” now houses the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Centre, another venue from which to explore the museum. From 50 computer terminals, visitors can access images and information on thousands of the museum’s 6 million objects. The 12,000 volumes from the Paul Hamlyn Library, which now adorn the circular shelves, also deal with aspects of the collection. And, unlike in the past when you had to be a member of the British Library to use the Reading Room, now everybody can enjoy it: Get a free ticket when you visit, go in and stay as long as you like.

The roof over the Great Court is a 65,000-square-foot canopy of glass and crisscrossing steel, and through it I could see the sun had finally deigned to appear. The hundreds of visitors--predominantly German, Japanese and American--were ambling along, without that relentlessly joyless air of tourists “doing” a place.

Two open-plan cafes, some discreetly placed museum shops selling an excellent array of books and the obligatory mugs, and the odd ancient sculptures made me feel that I was in a living and breathing classical piazza. This is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful modern additions to London’s architecture that I have seen in years.

And the work goes on. To celebrate next year’s anniversary, the King’s Library, one of the finest 19th century interiors in London, which runs along the right side of the Great Court, is being restored. It holds the libraries of Kings George II and III, and next year it will contain a look-but-don’t-touch permanent exhibition on 18th century learning and discovery.

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So where to start the international tour? There are nearly 100 display rooms, a daunting prospect for the average visitor who spends only about three hours in the museum. It’s impossible to see it all in one shot, so it’s best to stick to the highlights and take in as much as you can on the way.

Having toured the Reading Room with a succinct, indispensable $4 Visit Guide in hand, I made my way to the first of the Egyptian Galleries, which are to the left of the Great Court. The Egyptian Galleries are by far the most popular in the museum, and sure enough these rooms, dominated by the monumental head of Ramses II, were the most crowded--although it was still possible to get close to the exhibits. It’s one of the most important collections of its kind outside Cairo, covering Egyptian culture from about 4000 BC to the 12th century AD. Wandering in and out of the display of sculptures made me feel that I was at an indoor Valley of the Kings.

Walking between the pair of colossal 9th century BC human-headed winged lions, which once guarded the Assyrian palace at Nimrud, would give anyone more of a thrill than a ride at an amusement park. Not that museum visitors are any better informed than those at a theme park. There were little knots of tours going on, led by specialists with a dogged enthusiasm and a sometimes-exasperated air. As I passed one group, I heard a guide wearily explain to a young girl who had asked where “antiquity” actually was on the map, that no, she was talking about a concept rather than a place.

A crowd of about 20 French tourists in the gallery had gathered around a glass case that held one of the highlights of the Egyptian collection: the Rosetta Stone, the key to ancient hieroglyphics discovered by a couple of 18th century Frenchmen. Up close, this archeological treasure displays little of its iconic status. It’s just a hunk of black rock covered in writing, but it’s one of the museum’s most-visited exhibits.

I wanted a bit more mystery in my history, so I moved on to the collection of mummies, which is on the second floor and best reached by going back into the Great Court and taking one of the new stone stairways that encircle the Reading Room.

Food and drink are always an integral part of any vacation, however short, so on the way to Egypt Part Two, I stopped for tea in the new Court restaurant, which sits at the top of the stairs overlooking the Reading Room dome. There was a time when museum food in London was as tired and old as some of the exhibits, but in the harshly competitive new world of leisure, most institutions have had to pull their socks up, as they say here. The Court is one of the best museum restaurants I’ve tried: modern, spacious and reasonably priced (a traditional English tea costs $9), with--atypically British--obliging service. The view down into the Reading Room was so spectacular that I lingered and watched the human ants below.

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In life, they say, we are surrounded by death, which may explain why the Egyptian mummies and funeral equipment exert such a pull. Or maybe it’s the ersatz familiarity brought on by Hollywood movies. The fascination is particularly strong among kids, who swarmed around the encased bodies, perhaps expecting that one might suddenly come to life.

A heavily bandaged Cleopatra--another one, not the Queen of the Nile--was the center of most attention. Exquisitely detailed gold caskets for ancient dignitaries with snappy names like Henutmehyt and Tjentmutengebtiu sit among objects put into their stone sarcophagi to see them on their way to the afterlife. The beauty of the displays here is that you don’t need to know details. The aura cast by the pieces manages to speak to visitors across centuries.

I went back downstairs, nodded to Ramses II on the way and moved on to ancient Greece and the Parthenon Galleries. In recent years these galleries have been at the center of controversy because they house the Elgin Marbles, sculptural friezes and broken decorative sculptural pieces taken from the Parthenon in Athens and brought to England in the early 19th century by Lord Elgin. Greek officials have long campaigned for their return, but the museum and Britain’s government insist that they are here to stay.

The quarrel is only the tip of the iceberg, because, as the politically correct argument goes, much of what the museum displays is plunder from years of British global imperialist domination. But most visitors I asked in the gallery seemed indifferent to the dispute.

The main gallery, which is long, elegant and spare, allows the sculptures to be shown as they were in their original setting. At each end, stone remnants of horses’ heads, swirling robes and seated gods are gracefully and accurately placed so you find yourself trying to rebuild the Parthenon to its former glory in your head. (To help you, there’s a scale model in the middle of the gallery.) Along each of the connecting walls, friezes depict processions of horsemen and warriors.

Determined to visit another country and finding that many of the Asian galleries were closed for refurbishment, I went on to the new Sainsbury African Galleries in the basement. On the way I had a whistle-stop tour through countless underpopulated smaller rooms, most of which were crowded with stark glass cases typical of older museums. Prehistory, Ancient Anatolia, Later Mesopotamia--all were way too dull to interest anyone but academics.

When the museum’s new director, Neil McGregor, arrives later this summer from Britain’s National Gallery, he will have his work cut out for him dealing with the recently publicized financial troubles and averting staff layoffs. Once he has faced these problems he should turn his attention to the displays. Despite the inspirational new building and excellent Roman, Greek and Egyptian collections, a large part of the collection is still unimaginatively presented. As its director for 15 years, McGregor managed to popularize the National Gallery without dumbing it down. Perhaps he can work the same magic here.

The African galleries were alive, vividly colorful and dramatically presented. Life-size models of warriors in ceremonial costume, video displays, music and theatrical lighting made a great counterpoint to the abundance of stone and glass upstairs. The crowning exhibit was a series of 16th century Benin brasses, which, in their striking modernity, could have been in any contemporary art gallery.

That was it for the day. I would have to return to see the Americas, Oceania and the finest collection of drawings, prints and coins found anywhere. Nevertheless I felt that I had learned more about the world in one afternoon than I would have if I had gone on a six-week package tour with a McDonald’s at every stop.

The British Museum does not patronize its visitors, and if it appears a little unyielding, that’s not a bad trait in a world that yields too much.

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Guidebook: Exploring the British Museum

The British Museum: Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG, England; 011-44-20- 7323-8299, www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk.

The nearest Underground stations are Holborn, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Road and Goodge Street.

The museum is open 10 a.m.-

5:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday and 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday.

Great Court is open 9 a.m.-

6 p.m. Sunday-Wednesday and 9 a.m.-11 p.m. Thursday-

Saturday.

The Court restaurant; 011-44-

20-7323-8990, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday-Wednesday, 11 a.m.-

9 p.m. Thursday-Saturday.

Peter Whittle