The British Museum

From the back cover:

The British Museum was the first museum in the world which was public, secular and national. Founded by Act of Parliament in 1753, its treasures expanded amazingly until by the end of the nineteenth century it contained, among many other things, the world's greatest collections of printed books, classical antiquities and natural-history specimens. Over the years nearly a score of architects have wrestled with the problem posed by this process of perpetual expansion. And the battle of Bloomsbury is still being fiercely fought today.