{Inscription on the glass frontage:}
A plaster cast of Darwin was relocated from this window when the Grant Museum of Zoology was moved over the road.
Institute of Making members were challenged to create a new Darwin in any form or medium using data from a 3D laser scan of the original bust. This full sized resin version was milled using the massive robot arm "La Toyah" at B-Made, the CADCAM lab at the Bartlett.
This website gives more detailed information about the creation of the bust.
In 2011, the Grant Museum moved from its previous location in the Darwin Building, Gower Street, to the Thomas Lewis Room in the Rockefeller Building, University Street, formerly the UCL Medical School library.
Site: Charles Darwin bust (1 memorial)
WC1, Gower Street, UCL Biological Sciences Building
The bust is in a case on the right hand side of the entrance.
Professor Joe Cain has researched the history of this site, which includes Darwin's house, number 12 Upper Gower Street, and the house(s) where the Coopers lived, 90-94 Gower Street.
No plaque but Lady Diana Cooper, renowned beauty, actress, socialite and political wife moved to number 90 Gower Street with her husband, Duff Cooper in 1920, and then expanded into the first floors of numbers 92 and 94. Here was a drawing room decorated by Rex Whistler with Roman plaques and vases in trompe l'oeil. They lived here until 1937, years that Diana considered some of her happiest. For a time they actually lived at the Admiralty due to Duff's job and Gower Street was empty, except when Duff used it as a rendez-vous for his love-affairs, but it was an open sort of marriage so Diana knew quite a lot of what was going on. Information from Philip Ziegler's biography of Diana Cooper.
Professor Cain's aerial photo shows the site after war-time bombing.
Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of plaquesoflondon.co.uk
