6 Burlington Gardens
| 6 Burlington Gardens | |
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6 Burlington Gardens in 2005
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| Coordinates | 51°30′35″N 0°08′25″W / 51.5097°N 0.1402°WCoordinates: 51°30′35″N 0°08′25″W / 51.5097°N 0.1402°W |
| Built | 1867–70 |
| Architect | Sir James Pennethorne |
| Architectural style(s) | Italianate |
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Listed Building – Grade II*
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| Official name: Ethnography Department of the British Museum | |
| Designated | 9 January 1970 |
| Reference no. | 1291018 |
6 Burlington Gardens is a Grade II*-listed building in Mayfair, London. Built for the University of London, it has been used by various institutions in the course of its history, including the Civil Service Commission, the British Museum and, currently, the Royal Academy of Arts.
The Italianate building was designed by Sir James Pennethorne between 1867 and 1870 as headquarters for the University of London. It occupied the northernmost section of the former garden of Burlington House. It was a grand building, but not especially large. The University of London is a federal university and this early central building contained little besides examination halls and a few offices; the premises of several of the constituent colleges were larger. The university vacated Burlington Gardens in 1900 for the Imperial Institute building in South Kensington. Briefly the headquarters of the National Antarctic Expedition, in 1902 it was given to the Civil Service Commission.
In 1970, this was the site of the Department of Ethnography of the British Museum, which housed its collections from the Americas, Africa, the Pacific and Australia, as well as tribal Asia and Europe, because of lack of space in the Museum's main building in Bloomsbury. Between 1970 and 1997, the building, as the Museum of Mankind, hosted around 75 exhibitions, including many famous ones such as Nomad and City, 1976, and Living Arctic, 1987. It was created by Keeper of Ethnography Adrian Digby in the 1960s, and opened by his successor William Fagg. Fagg was succeeded by Malcolm Mcleod in 1974, and by John Mack in 1990. The museum ceased exhibiting at Burlington Gardens in 1997 and the Department of Ethnography moved back to the British Museum in Bloomsbury in 2004.
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