Those who have worked in the Royal Institution of Great Britain have, since its foundation in 1799, made significant contributions to scientific knowledge, to its practical application, and to its communication to a wide variety of audiences. Such work cannot be carried out in an architectural vacuum, and in this paper we examine how the buildings of the Royal Institution, 20 and 21 Albemarle Street in central London, have shaped the work undertaken within its walls and how, on a number of occasions, the buildings have been reconfigured to take account of the evolving needs of scientific research and communication.
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This paper is based on the Conservation Plan of the Royal Institution that we wrote during 2003. The Conservation Plan did not examine the land owned by the Royal Institution to the north (i.e., 22 and 23 Albemarle Street; for this area see Richard Garnier, “Grafton Street, Mayfair,” Georgian Group Journal 13 (2003), 210–272), but it did discuss 18 and 19 Albemarle Street. In this paper we concentrate on the core Royal Institution buildings at 20 and 21 Albemarle Street. Other studies of the relationship of architecture,space, and science include Crosbie Smith and Jon Agar, ed., Making Space for Science: Territorial Themes in the Shaping of Knowledge (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997); Peter Galison and Emily Thompson, ed., The Architecture of Science (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999); and Sophie Forgan,“The architecture of science and the idea of a university,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 20 (1989), 405–434.
Frank A.J.L. James is Professor of the History of Science at the Royal Institution; he has written widely on the history of nineteenth-century science in its social and cultural contexts and is editor of the Correspondence of Michael Faraday. He is President of the British Society for the History of Science. Anthony Peers is an Associate of Rodney Melville and Partners where he works in the field of building conservation as an architectural historian. He is a Council member of the Ancient Monument Society.
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James, F.A.J.L., Peers, A. Constructing Space for Science at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Phys. perspect. 9, 130–185 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-006-0303-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-006-0303-5
Keywords:
- Royal Institution
- Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory
- Benjamin Thompson
- Thomas Young
- Humphry Davy
- Michael Faraday
- John Tyndall
- James Dewar
- William Bragg
- Lawrence Bragg
- George Porter
- Susan Greenfield
- John Carr
- Henry Holland
- John Soane
- Thomas Webster
- William Flockhart
- Lewis Vulliamy
- Leonard Rome Guthrie
- architecture of science
- scientific laboratories
- scientific lectures
- scientific communication
- application of science
- history of London
- history of Westminster
- history of Mayfair