For historical significance and the international scope of its collection, Oxford's Ashmolean Museum is comparable to the British Museum and the V&A in London. While those institutions were born during the Victorian age to provide educationally improving facilities for the populace, the Ashmolean was founded in 1677 - some argue it's the first public museum in the world - and has been tied to the more enclosed world of Oxford University. Paradoxically, this is set to change, and its inability to significantly expand through much of its history, ultimately enabled a more radical reappraisal of its public role and curatorial approach than its London counterparts.

The museum has an eccentric history reflected in the breadth of its collection. It was founded through a donation to the university by an avid collector of curiosities, Elias Ashmole. His bequest included an array of stuffed animals and ethnographic relics acquired from John Tradescant and his son, John the Younger, 17th-century plant smuggler and over the centuries the collection has expanded and become increasingly comprehensive. It now possesses the most diverse collection of pre-Dynastic Egyptian material outside Cairo, the only great collection of Minoan antiquities outside Heraklion, the largest and most important collection of Raphael drawings in the world and the greatest Anglo-Saxon collection outside the British Museum.

The new Ashmolean by Rick Mather Architects is attached to the rear of the original Greek revival building by Robert Cockerell. Not needing to provide a new public face for the museum, the architects was able to concentrate on increasing its display space and recreate the building for a new approach to curation. The dilapidated state and inadequate facilities of the existing building provided the opportunity for a drastic overhaul.

Mather's extension has six storeys, with a floor area of 9000sq m, 4000sq m of which has been given over to display space. Essential facilities, such as an education centre, conservation studios and a loading bay were included without interfering with the clarity of the main galleries. Natural light is filtered vertically through the building to the lower ground level via inter-connecting galleries that vary in floorspace and height to house the differing objects on display.

An impressively elegant and coherent as these provisions are, more significant is the new curatorial approach that guided the remodelling of the museum was called Crossing Cultures Crossing Time, a vague slogan that involved breaking chronological, geographical and departmental categories in order to provide more thematic and intelligent displays. It required the museum's keepers to loosen their hold over the artefacts in their care and approach display that was popular without being patronising.

A clear, spiralling route was established through the museum for visitors to approach the more nuanced historical narrative now provided. This route is largely dictated by a central, five-flight, reinforced concrete staircase that grand sculptural showpiece in the generous atrium. Deep interior walls throughout the museum allow for services to be hidden, but also for apertures to be created where artefacts can be displayed between galleries. In an instantly appreciable way these features demonstrate the links between objects from countries separated by oceans and borders.

Thanks to the smaller scale of the Ashmolean, and the fact that is has avoided gradual evolution for most of its life it was a more radical reinvention than has been experienced by its London counterparts. In a seemingly modest way, the Ashmolean Museum has made a contribution to museum architecture and curation that far outstrips its scale. 

For historical significance and the interbational scope of its collection, Oxford's Ashmolean Museum is comparable to the British Museum and the V&A in London. While those institutions were born during the Victorian age to provide educationally improving facilities for the populace, the Ashmolean was founded in 1677 - some argue it's the first public museum in the world - and has been tied to the more enclosed world of Oxford University. Paradoxically, this is set to change, and its inability to significantly expand through much of its history, ultimately enabled a more radical reappraisal of its public role and curatorial approach than its London counterparts.

The museum has an eccentric history reflected in the breadth of its collection. It was founded through a donation to the university by an avid collector of curiosities, Elias Ashmole. His bequest included an array of stuffed animals and ethnographic relics acquired from John Tradescant and his son, John the Younger, 17th-century plant smuggler and over the centuries the collection has expanded and become increasingly comprehensive. It now possesses the most diverse collection og pre-Dynastic Egyptian material outside Cairo, the only great collection of Minoan antiquities outside Heraklion, the largest and most important collection of Raphael drawings in the world and the greatest Anglo-Saxon collection outside the British Museum.

The new Ashmolean by Rick Mather Architects is attached to the rear of the original Greek revival building by Robert Cockerell. Not needing to provide a new public face for the museum, the architects was able to concentrate on increasing its display space and recreate the building for a new approach to curation. The delipadated stae and inadequate facilities ofthe existing building provided the opportunity for a drastic overhaul.

Mather's extension has six storeys, with a floor area of 9000sq m, 4000sq m of which has been given over to display space. Essential facilities, such as an education centre, conservation studios and a loading bay were included without interfering with the clarity of the main galleries. Natural light is filtered vertically through the building to the lower ground level via inter-connecting galleries that vary in floorspace and height to house the differing objects on display.

An impressively elegant and coherent as these provisions are, more significant is the new cutorial approach that guided the remodeling of the museum was called Crossing Cultures Crossing Time, a vague slogan that involved breaking chronoogical, geographical and departmental categories in order to provide more thematic and intelligent displays. It required the museum's keepers to loosen their hold over the artefacts in their care and approach display that was popular without being patronising.

A clear, spiraling route was established through the museum for visitors to approach the more nuanced historical narrative now provided. This route is largely dictated by a central, five-flight, reinforced concrete staircase that grand sculptural showpiece in the genorous atrium. Deep interior walls throughout the museum allow for services to be hidden, but also for apetures to be created where artefacts can be displayed between galleries. In an instantly appreciable way these features demonstrate the links between objects from countries seperated by oceans and borders.

Thanks to the smaller scale of the Ashnolean, and the fact that is has avoided gradual evolution for most of its life it was a more radical reinvention than has been experienced by its London counterparts. In a seemingly modest way, the Ashmolean Museum has made a contribution to museum architecture and curation that far outstrips its scale.