london152 The two-acre square, enclosed by a spectacular glass roof, transforms the Museum's inner courtyard, with the world-famous Reading Room at its centre, into the largest covered public square in Europe. Designed by Foster and Partners, the £100 million project has been supported by grants of £30 million from the Millennium Commission and £15.75 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The courtyard was one of the lost spaces of London, hidden from public view since 1857. The relocation and opening of the British Library at its St Pancras site, has enabled valuable space within the Museum to be utilized to the benefit of the Museum's visitors. The Great Court has increased public space in the Museum by forty per cent, allowing visitors to move freely around the Main floor for the first time in 150 years. Once in the Great Court, visitors can choose from a number points of entry into the galleries. There is now direct access west into the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery, east into the King's Library and north into the new Welcome Gallery of Ethnography. Inside the courtyard itself, two monumental staircases encircle the drum of the Reading Room and lead to the Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery, and the Court Restaurant. From the restaurant level a bridge link takes visitors into the upper galleries of the Museum.