 |
Burlington House
|
OK, so you've done your West End shopping, now what?
Well on Piccadilly, Burlington House is worth a visit, with the added bonus of seeing the Royal Academy's latest exhibition.
Around the courtyard are housed a small number of august institutions. Beyond the Royal Academy galleries there are the headquarters of the Royal Society of Chemists and the Society of Antiquaries among others.
Except for the Royal Academy, the premises of the other institutions are not normally open to the public. However every year over a weekend in September Open House arranges for many such buildings to be freely open to the general public. If you can, don't miss this marvellous annual opportunity!
The two photographs on the left show the Courtyard, looking South (Piccadilly is through the arch) and North with the Royal Academy advertising an exhibition.
Below is the Courtyard reflected in an Anish Kapoor installation.
The Linnean Society is the world's oldest active biological society, named after Carl Linnaeus who founded the binomial naming system for all plants & animals. He is responsible for calling us all, Homo Sapiens.
Each of the Learned Societies has a main Meeting Room on the ground floor where Members present their papers.
Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace presented their Origin of The Species by Natural Selection papers to the Linnean Society on 1st July 1858 in the Reynolds Room of the Royal Academy, which was where the Linnean Society used to meet, prior to moving to their current premises.
On the first floor, each of the Societies has a double height formal Library.
If these institutions have whetted your appetite for the sciences, The Royal Institution is just 5 minutes away, off Piccadilly.
This quaint Victorian Letter box is still in use in the entrance archway into the Courtyard.
This Telephone Kiosk is almost hidden behind the entrance gates on to Piccadilly.
|
