The refurbishment of the Warburg Institute has entered the third and final phase of construction. 07.11.23

The refurbishment of the Warburg Institute has now entered the third and final phase of construction. This phase will see the opening up of the Ground and Lower Ground Floors, to accommodate a new entrance foyer and open plan exhibition space, sitting adjacent to a new 140 seat lecture theatre, housed in a new build extension within the rear courtyard.

The new lecture theatre will feature an elliptical ceiling beam, cast in situ with the exposed concrete frame. The elliptical shape, which had great meaning for Aby Warburg, references the elliptical roof lights in the reading room of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (KBW) in Hamburg. The complex formwork has been machine-fabricated off-site and will be positioned and reinforced by the on-site team prior to casting with self-compacting concrete.

Elsewhere on the Ground Floor, the Institute’s frieze of the nine muses has now been taken offsite for specialist restoration by Taylor Pearce Ltd. The frieze was originally located on the façade of a row of Georgian townhouses that previously occupied the site but was preserved when the Institute was built and mounted into the wall in the lobby area. The frieze is made from a material called Coade stone and is said to be a copy of a Greek Roman sarcophagus decoration that is now part of the Louvre’s collection. Once restored, the frieze will be resurrected within the new entrance foyer, for the enjoyment of future generations.

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