Egyptian Hall

For the Glasgow building see The Egyptian Halls.

The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, was an Exhibition hall built in the ancient Egyptian style in 1812, to the designs of Peter Frederick Robinson.

History

The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, commissioned by William Bullock as a museum to house his collection (which included curiosities brought back from the South Seas by Captain CookAdrienne L. Kaeppler, "Cook Voyage Provenance of the 'Artificial Curiosities' of Bullock's Museum" Man, New Series, 9.1 (March 1974), pp. 68-92.W.H. Mullens, "Some museums of old London: II William Bullock's London Museum", Museum Journal 17 (1917-18) pp 51-56, 132-37, 180-87; Tom Iredale, "Bullock's Museum", Australian Zoology 2 (1948) pp 233-37. It was the first building in England to be influenced by the Egyptian style,Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 3rd ed. (Yale University Press) 1995, s.v. "Robinson, Peter Frederick"; Survey of London vol. xxix. partly inspired by the success of the Egyptian Room in Thomas Hope's house in Duchess Street, which was open to the public and had been well illustrated in Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807). But, unlike Bullock's Egyptian temple in Piccadilly, Hope's neoclassical façade betrayed no hint of the Egyptianizing...
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