Introducing the Reading Room


W


elcome to the Reading Room. If Wellcome Collection is home for the incurably curious, this space is designed


to nurture those most gravely afflicted by the desire to know just a little bit more. Like the rest of Wellcome Collection, the Reading Room


draws inspiration from our founder, the pharmacist, entrepreneur and avid collector Henry Wellcome. The room was originally designed as a Hall of Statuary and formed part of his sprawling museum, with marble busts rubbing up alongside totem poles and anatomical figurines. But Wellcome was not just obsessed with objects. His initial passion was as a bibliophile, and after his death the Hall of Statuary was reinvented as part of his library, crammed with bookcases and card catalogues. From time to time there were experiments with exhibitions alongside the bookshelves and readers’ desks, but the main purpose of the room was solitary, scholarly study – a place for consuming and producing text. In its latest incarnation, we have tried to knit together this


split heritage to create a place that champions both sides of Wellcome’s collection. It celebrates both the tradition of exhib- ition visiting – of looking, talking and sharing – and that of the library, of reading, touching, thinking, writing and creating. We hope that you will find inspiration in the combination of these two very common (but usually separate) cultural spaces and indulge your curiosity in multiple ways. Perusing an exhibit or artwork may lead you to browse bookshelves and drawers, or the books and other resources in the room might prompt you to look anew at the objects on display. The room is full of invitations to leave your own mark so that, like all great libraries, the Reading Room will grow to be as much a product of its user as its designer. Since opening in 2007, Wellcome Collection has made great


efforts to shine an intriguing light on the visual and material culture associated with medicine and health. The Reading Room carries on that habit of experimental exhibition-making. At the same time, we have also been inspired by the rekindled excitement about the value that libraries bring to our lives. Despite (or perhaps because of) economic and political vicissitudes, there seems to be a growing number of people who see the benefit of reinventing and reinvesting in publicly accessible libraries.


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