The answer is yes, but not quite in the way I had anticipated. I had expected the building to make a big statement in today's fashionable "signature" style, but to be let down by its details, to wilt under close scrutiny. But the opposite is true. I was surprised how relatively self-effacing the building complex is from the outside. It is not a glittering, Bilbao-like icon. The adjacent pre-existing "Dynamic Earth" museum by Sir Michael Hopkins with its white tensile roof is far more assertive. On the other hand, when you get up close and go inside - even though so much of the work on the interiors is still to do - the quality of the finished work, the level of detailing, is prodigious. It is remarkable to find such a level of individual craftsmanship in a building of this size.

Email this page to a friend