SOAS, University of London

SOAS stands in the heart of Bloomsbury, a district in the London Borough of Camden. The university occupies a compact campus of red-brick buildings around Thornhaugh Street, close to Russell Square. Its library occupies the Philips Building, a modern tower that rises above the surrounding streets. The SOAS Gallery in the Brunei Gallery hosts rotating exhibitions of art and artefacts from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The campus is small enough to walk across in ten minutes, yet it feels like a world apart. SOAS was founded in 1916 to train British officials for service across the empire. Its founders included Earl Curzon of Kedleston, once Viceroy of India, who helped inaugurate the school in February 1917. During the Second World War the college moved to Cambridge, where it ran language courses for military translators. After the war the Scarborough Commission recommended expansion, and the SOAS School of Law opened in 1947. Today the school is recognised as the UK’s national resource for materials on Asia and Africa. Visitors find a quiet campus of lecture halls, seminar rooms and study spaces. The Brunei Gallery’s glass-roofed atrium hosts exhibitions that change several times each year. The SOAS Library holds the world’s largest collection of books and manuscripts on Asia and Africa. A new visual identity introduced in 2012 uses a gold tree symbol with leaves representing England, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The campus is bordered by Russell Square, where students and scholars gather on benches between classes.