Museum of Natural History / Oxford University

Oxford University Museum of Natural History is a building where the Victorian and the contemporary seem remarkably comfortable alongside one another. Built between 1855 and 1860 to designs by Deane and Woodward, the Museum was conceived as a new home for scientific study at Oxford. Its neo-Gothic stone architecture surrounds a soaring central court of iron and glass — an extraordinary piece of Victorian engineering that still feels surprisingly modern more than 160 years later.

What makes the building particularly fascinating is the meeting of craftsmanship and technology. Stone, carved decoration and timber sit alongside slender ironwork and the vast glazed roof, filling the central court with natural light. It is easy to think of Victorian architecture purely in terms of ornament and tradition, but this building demonstrates just how inventive the period could be: using new materials and engineering techniques to create spaces of great delicacy, scale and ambition.

That relationship between old and new has continued throughout the Museum's life. In 2013–14, architects Purcell worked with the University on a major restoration of the historic roof, during which more than 8,500 glass tiles were individually removed, cleaned and resealed. More recently, the Museum has undertaken an extensive redisplay of its collections, introducing elegant new showcases into the main court while carefully retaining the proportions and character of the historic displays.

I was commissioned to photograph the Museum as this latest chapter was completed. What interested me was not simply the new work in isolation, but the way it sits within the original architecture. Contemporary glass cases, Victorian ironwork, stone and timber all occupy the same space, separated by more than a century but sharing a similar concern for lightness, transparency and the display of the natural world. The result is a building that feels historic without ever feeling static — a Victorian vision of modernity that continues to evolve.