British Museum, London

The British Museum is a public museum devoted to human history, art and culture, and this grand building is its home. Its collection holds eight million artefacts, documenting humanity from its earliest origins through the present, and is the largest in the world. Established in 1753, it became the world's first public national museum.

The institution opened its doors in 1759 inside Montagu House, which occupied this site before the present building replaced it. Its beginnings came largely from the holdings of Sir Hans Sloane, an Anglo-Irish doctor and scientist whose bequest helped create the museum. The current building was designed by Robert Smirke and Sydney Smirke.

Look at the long classical frontage and its repeated columns: they give the building a ceremonial scale, while the stone surface keeps the detail measured and formal. The museum's expansion over about 250 years was closely tied to British colonisation, and that history remains part of how its collections are understood. Among its most contested objects are the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon sculptures, both connected with continuing repatriation claims. The building is a Grade I listed building, but its strongest presence is still the invitation written into its purpose: a museum intended for the public.