Cast Courts

The Cast Courts were designed specifically to hold two massive, full-scale replicas of global monuments that were too large to fit anywhere else in the museum. When the galleries opened in 1873, architects built the rooms to a soaring height of twenty-five meters to accommodate these towering treasures. One of these, a plaster replica of Rome's Trajan Column, was so immense that it had to be constructed in two separate pieces, which still stand upright in the gallery today. These rooms were created as a grand classroom, intended to bring the world's most significant art to a London audience that had little opportunity for international travel.